What is Carding

Nowadays, we use online services every day to fulfill our needs. Before this pandemic situation, most people didn't do their transactions using online services. Anyway, now online services are the most popular way to do everything. If we need to shop, we use shopping sites like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. And if we need to hire someone to do our work, that has also become very easy with these online services. So most people use their credit or debit cards to pay for these, and some others use physical payment methods like cash on delivery. So today I'm going to explain the latest way money scammers use to scam innocent people. That is carding.

What is Carding ?

Carding means the process fraudsters use to determine whether stolen card numbers are active and have not yet been reported lost or stolen. Usually, carders use donation or e-commerce sites to check if the card numbers are still working.

There are so many ways used to steal card numbers by carders.

Phishing is the most popular way to steal card numbers from numbers. Carders create fake websites with the interface of original websites. But those are published with a data capturing feature. So when you add your payment details to proceed to the next step, they capture those details and store them in their databases. Then they used them to do their own work or sell them. 

Sometimes they create card numbers with BIN (Bank Identitification Number) and check them with the E-Commerce gateways.

How to identify a carding activity 

If you feel you have also been a victim of a carder, use these ways to confirm it is or it isn't. 

• If you received OTPs from your bank or financial company without your knowledge, that is a signal that your card has been stolen by someone. If you received OTPs, that means the carder tried to bypass a 3D Secured gateway.

• If your card has been declined when you are using it to make a payment through an online gateway or ATM, that is a sign that fraud is being blocked by the card issuer's system.

How to prevent from this scam 

• Confirm whether you are using the original website to make your purchase.

• Always try to use a 3D secured gateway to complete the payment (you can find out whether it is a 3D secured gateway or not through these symbols).

• Activate 2-step verification on your card by contacting your card issuer.

• Replace your old card with a new card with a smart chip (that helps to prevent fraud).

• Use the Address Verification System (AVS)

 Credits : Shift4Shop

Author : Chamath Thiwanka