Aussies are being urged to be on the lookout for suspicious credit / debit card charges labelled “Jet Frog,” as they come before major fraudulent criminal transactions.
One Sydneysider shared on Reddit about a suspicious pending transaction they saw on their online banking statement.
It was for $0, indicating a ‘hold’ attempt, usually to verify card details from an unknown organisation, Jet Frog.
“Never heard of them, nor had ordered anything at the time of the charge. Googled it and the first result was a scam … they test your card and if it works, start blasting charges to it.”
After contacting the bank, the card was cancelled and reissued.
It’s been reported Jet Frog fraud attempts are active in Australia only recently. And there are no registered companies with that name.
A financial site describes Jet Frog as a 3rd party payment processor, however, there are few signs the operation is real.
Social media posts from those hit with these charges say they hadn’t made recent purchases that could be linked with the company.
One victim wrote about a charge for 99 cents, which was followed shortly by the purchase of a necklace for $1000.
Another saw a charge for 14 cents, and then multiple attempted transactions for Uber before they contacted their bank and cancelled the card.
Posts about these Jet Frog charges date back to late 2021, however, most were confined to the US and Europe.
Most reported amounts were under $1, some for $0 and others for around 14 cents.
It’s understood multiple major Australian banks are aware of the fraud attempts, and have flagged future attempted transactions.
“At ING, we continually monitor accounts for suspicious and fraudulent activity,” a spokesperson said.
“As in this instance, we spotted the transaction, cancelled the customer’s card and reissued them with a new one. While we do everything we can to protect customers from fraud, we also encourage customers to diligently review their transaction records and contact us immediately on 133 464 if they ever spot anything that doesn’t seem right.”
Anyone who notices a Jet Frog transaction is urged to immediately contact their bank to cancel the card and get a new one.
Those already affected have been encouraged to talk with their bank and make a report with ScamWatch.
“If you’ve lost money or personal details to a scammer, you’re not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Australians are scammed out of their money or personal information every year.
“Contact your bank or card provider immediately to report the scam. Ask them to stop any transactions.”
“Once you have secured your details, you can help us try to stop the scam or to warn others by reporting the scam to us.”
Previously, criminals relied on physical skimming devices attached to ATMs and EFTPOS machines to swipe CC details and PIN codes.
Real websites have also been infiltrated to steal stored payment details, which are then sold on the dark web.
NordVPN recently studied four million credit cards listed for sale on the dark web, finding most were obtained via brute force.
“That means that criminals basically try to guess the card number and CVV. The first six to eight numbers are the card issuer’s ID number. That leaves hackers with seven to nine numbers to guess because the 16th digit is a checksum and is used only to determine whether any mistakes were made when entering the number.”
“However, depending on the card issuer, a criminal may need only seven digits to make a correct guess. In this case, six seconds would be enough.”
Once the correct combination has been found, the criminal can sell the data for as little as $10 on the dark web.
“And hackers have millions of these ready to sell.”
Of the four million stolen cards available, over 419,000 belonged to Australian victims.
NordVPN found Visa cards were most common among caches, followed by MasterCard and American Express.
“Debit cards were more common than credit cards in the markets the independent researchers surveyed. Hacked debit cards put their victims at greater risk because there tend to be less protections in place for debit.”
