Two Sharp Staffers Save Their Credit Union Money in Card Fraud Case

EVERETT, Wash. – Two staff members of the $32 million Snocope Federal Credit Union saved their credit union a lot of money in October 2004 when they reacted to events in the credit union’s 1,200 account credit card portfolio in time to save it from significant card losses. Steve Ellis, vice president for lending for the credit union, came out of a meeting to find an alert from Falcon, the neural fraud protection program run by its processor, Certegy, at the same time that Jackie Glassman, a lending specialist, was taking a phone call about a card account from a member which didn’t ring true with her. “Someone called and said he had just had a cash advance declined and said he knew he had enough money on his account,” Glassman said. “So I asked him some of the routine questions we ask our members and he wasn’t answering them in the same way other members do. So, I put him on hold and went to find Steve who, it turns out, was looking at a Falcon alert about this same account.” After she hung up with the caller, Glassman said she called the member whose card it was and found out the member had not received the new card for which he had been waiting. Meanwhile, Ellis had been finding out that they were seeing a flurry of card activations in the space of just a few minutes. “That just doesn’t happen,” Ellis said and the pair began taking steps to shut the accounts down. It turned out the credit union had a batch of cards stolen on the way from Certegy and that about 18 accounts with a total of 26 cards were at risk. But the pair’s observant and fast action kept the number of accounts actually involved in the fraud to three. The two have been honored by their credit union and CUNA Mutual for their quick reaction and thinking. [email protected]