Cardholders of credit unions using The Members Group as their processing provider now can choose to get text alerts about possible fraud attempts.

The Des Moines, Iowa, cards services company said the service is an opt-in offering and can be branded with the issuing institution's name.

Here's an example: “ABC FI Fraud Alert: Please review the following transactions: 2010-04-20 – TARGET 303.33, 2010-04-20-Wal Mart 202.22, 2010-04-20 – Freds Bar n Grill 101.10, 2010-04-20 – NFM 90.99. Are any of these transactions Fraud? Reply Y or N. To stop receiving alerts reply STOP.”

“Yes” replies are followed by a hold on the account and a second text with a phone call asking the card holder to call the TMG fraud prevention team, the company said.

Whether to send the initial text message is determined by the client's fraud prevention rules, TMG said. The company's fraud experts look at the flagged transactions in that context and if warranted, text the cardholder, said Karen Postma, TMG cards risk senior manager.

“Many financial-management text alerts, including TMG's Visa Transaction Alerts, are triggered by cardholder-initiated settings, which is excellent for budgeting and account management,” Postma said. “But when it comes to fraud prevention, you really need those texts to be driven by proven prevention strategies and highly trained specialists.”

The service was announced Wednesday at TMG's client conference in Sonoma, Calif. TMG is a subsidiary of the Iowa credit union-owned Affiliates Management Co. and offers card, ATM and other services. The company declined to say how many credit union clients it has.

Instant Insights /

Text Alerts Offered by TMG

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