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Protect Yourself From Credit Card Number Fraud

Credit card number generators are programs that use the credit card companies’ rules for creating credit car numbers to generate numerically valid credit card numbers.

Although there are some legitimate uses of these software programs, the primary use is in credit card fraud.

Hackers use the software to “stumble upon” an active credit card number in order to generate a fake card.

How Do Criminals Use A Credit Card Generator?

Each type of credit card number has a certain pattern. A visa credit card number use a “4” while Discover starts with a “6”.  The credit card number generator uses these rules to generate thousands of numbers that follow these rules.  The hacker “stumbles” on an active credit card number through the law of averages.

How Do Criminals Use Stolen Credit Card Numbers?

Once the criminal has created a series of fake credit card numbers, he either tests them to see which ones are for a valid credit card number or uses a fake credit card printer to create phony credit cards.  He then finds a place that takes credit cards but cannot immediately validate them, such as a trade show.

The most common credit card hack is to test the stolen credit card numbers by making small transactions on a website that offers live processing. To do this, the criminal will enter number after number.  He will delete the numbers that fail to work and make small purchases for each for the ones that do.   He enters fake credit card info (address for delivery, etc) to avoid being traced.

How To Protect Yourself Against Credit Card Generator Fraud?

As a consumer, you need to initiate some credit card security measures to protect yourself against credit card number generator fraud.  The best way to do this is to cancel credit cards that you do not use so that criminals do not stumble upon a card you own and forgotten about. Now, it is true that closing an account could affect your FICO score by decreasing your amount of overall credit, but you have to weigh that risk against the risk of devastating identity theft.

As far as active credit card accounts, you can also protect yourself by checking your account activity during a billing period. You can spot any suspicious activity and immediately report fraud to your credit card issuer.

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