Editor's note: CU Journal correspondent Jim Jerving has been on the board of the $137-million Heritage Credit Union for five years, and is currently its vice chair. Here is HCU's story.
Heritage Credit Union in Madison, Wis., was originally founded as the credit union for Oscar Mayer employees in 1934. The members are working people and overwhelmingly middle income and many have debit cards. The credit union was starting to see debit transactions from Eastern European countries.
Few of its members had traveled to these countries. The cash transactions and purchases were made with skimmed debit cards. Heritage credited all of the member's accounts.
"The debit card fraud was occurring in 14 East European countries," said CEO Bob Lestina. "We told our processor to block transactions from these 14 countries. We have since added another five countries, including Romania and Nigeria."
International debit card fraud was halted. "We've not received one complaint from a member," Lestina said.
Tellers are also taught to initiate conversations with members when they attempt to cash large checks withdrawals. If the member demurs, they are told the credit union is looking out for their best interests.
