WASHINGTON—Financial institutions that offer card controls should provide some important security advice to their account holders, asserts one analyst.
"You should set your security alerts on your bank and credit card accounts as low as they'll allow," said Jeni Rogers, author of 200+ Ways to Protect Your Privacy, in a Washington Post report.
"What a lot of fraudsters do is try small charges, sometimes no more than a few cents, with the stolen credit card data first,” she said. “They do this to validate the card works before going on to make bigger purchases, and the amount is often so low that it will not trigger account alerts or even be noticeable in your day-to-day balance on your account."