John Bowen, president and chief executive of River Valley Credit Union, said over the weekend it had a jump in reports of fraud on 15 to 20 accounts with larger dollar amounts than normal, as well as approximately 200 compromised cards. A compromised card doesn’t always mean it has had fraud charges, but it can mean the processor or merchant where a card was used has been breached, Bowen said.
The activity in recent days make it “appear to me there’s some kind of criminal activity involved,” he said.
River Valley has seen fraudulent activity jump about 150 percent in the first quarter. “We typically don’t have this much in a year,” Bowen said.
River Valley has locations on Elliott Drive in Middletown and on West Central Avenue in Springboro.
Wright-Patt Credit Union’s 220,000 members traveling out of state are being asked to use their personal identification number, or PIN number, on all debit card purchases made outside of Ohio, which the credit union says is an “aggressive” proactive step against rising debit card fraud across the U.S. Wright-Patt did not disclose how many cases of fraud it has seen.
The credit union, which has locations in Norwood and Greenhills in Hamilton County, says it’s seeing more fraudulent activity in certain states affecting “a very low number” of members, said Tracy Fors, spokeswoman for Wright-Patt Credit Union. She said the credit union a week ago notified members of the security precautions.
This is affecting financial institutions nationwide, according to Wright-Patt.
The credit unions said their security has not been breached.
Jenna Deery contributed to this report. Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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