SFCU credit card fraud investigation remains opaque

Since 15 members of Penn’s Student Federal Credit Union fell victim to fraud earlier this year, the union as well as the Division of Public Safety have not issued any update on the investigation or on the outcome of the investigation.

On Feb. 24, the SFCU issued members an advisory from DPS alerting them of an investigation into the fraud. At the time, Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said accounts were robbed of anywhere from $400 to $1,600, with most cases involving a $400 to $500 loss.

Rush also said the unauthorized transactions were committed mostly outside of the Philadelphia area, as far as Las Vegas, Florida and Canada. It was unclear whether the information was stolen online and whether the cases are connected.

DPS declined to comment on the ongoing investigation. The SFCU responded to a request for comment with a statement that said members are not considered liable for the fraud if they report it in a “timely manner.” The SFCU deferred further comment to DPS.

The Office of Information Security has been consulting with DPS and SFCU to identify potential threats to credit cards in an effort to help inform the ongoing investigations, Information Security Officer Joshua Beeman wrote in an email.

Beeman added that the most common methods of fraud over the last year include skimmers, which take information off scanned credit cards, and large scale data breaches such as those that recently occurred at Target and Home Depot.

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