What To Do If Your DSB Visa Debit Card is Breached at a Merchant

Breaches | How DSB Responds | Stay Alert | How Card Payments Work

When a security breach or data compromise occurs in a card transaction, it means sensitive, protected or confidential data has been accessed, viewed, stolen or used by someone who is not authorized to do so. Often, data breaches are committed by criminals trying to steal financial information.  However, data breaches can also be unintentional; information may be accidentally exposed or lost due to the negligence of an employee. 

While U.S. banks in particular have very high security standards and expectations in place for card transactions, breaches from hackers and outsiders still occur with the merchants/people that accept card payments. Usually these breaches make up a small amount of the overall card transaction level, and banks, as card issuers, are able to absorb and manage those losses.

The financial services industry's first priority is to protect consumers from fraud caused by a breach. U.S. banks dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars annually to data security and adhere to strict regulatory and network requirements. Denison State Bank typically responds in this way when a breach is reported on any of its debit cardholders:

• We receive the report of compromised cards from our card services provider and monitoring companies.
• We contact all compromised card holders by phone call, email or letter with instructions on what to do. Compromised card holders may come to any DSB location to get a new card or, if preferred, can receive a new card in the mail. New cards will have a new card number and expiration date. 
• We arrange for your full refund of unauthorized debit amounts from your bank account balance.
• If a breach is on a large scale, we publicly communicate news and action taken on the bank's web site and DSB Facebook page.

If fraudsters obtain personal identifying information of card holders, they may try a variety of ways to scheme against card holders and get more information. They do this by disguising themselves as the card-issuing bank and asking for information such as the card number, PIN and security code on back of card. This can be done through phishing (email), vishing (voice phone calls), and smishing (SMS texts). These schemes can be very convincing.

Denison State Bank will never ask for your 4-digit PIN. The bank never has possession or record of your PIN. If you forget your PIN, you can reset it to your choice by calling or coming in.

If you discover an unauthorized debit card charge on your Denison State Bank account, you have 60 days from when your last account statement was sent to you to report it to the bank for full refund. Take these actions:

1. First, if you can identify the originator of the unauthorized charge, contact them and ask for it to be credited or refunded back.
2. Second, if unable to get it resolved, you will need to fill out and submit to us this form:  Visa Debit Card Dispute Form. As a Visa Debit Card holder, you are guaranteed Visa's "Zero Liability" promise on full refund of any unauthorized charges reported to the issuing bank within 60 days. You can read Visa's Debit Cardholders Rights and Liabilities on Disputes.
3. Monitor your account information continuously at DSBconnect, DSB Telebanking and your bank account statements. Sign up for free debit card usage alerts to get an email or text alert any time your debit card number is approved or declined for a purchase/withdrawal. If you see any unauthorized transactions, report it to the bank immediately. Follow steps 1 and 2 above for unauthorized debit card transactions. 

There are several parties involved in a debit card purchase transaction: the cardholder; the card-issuing financial institution; the merchant; the merchant's card acceptance vendor; the merchant's internet and telephone service provider; the financial institution's card services provider; Visa; and card network service providers. Protecting this payment system is a shared responsibility of all parties involved, although it is the banks that provide the zero-liability to their cardholders.