We are making changes to our Debit and Credit Card fraud monitoring services. We will now be sending SMS (text messages) asking you to confirm if certain transactions are genuine. You will be able to respond by a simple SMS reply.
This new SMS service applies to all First Option Bank VISA cards enabling you to easily authenticate genuine transactions, and be alerted about suspected fraudulent ones.
SMS messages you receive will include the transaction amount and time and ask you to confirm by replying “yes” if it is genuine or “no” if it is fraudulent.
Once we receive your SMS reply you will be sent another message confirming that the transaction has been recorded as genuine in our system. You may also be asked to re-attempt the transaction if the transaction was blocked by our fraud protection system when you originally attempted it.
If you answer “no” you will receive an SMS confirmation that you have indicated that the transaction is suspicious, and you will then receive a call from our fraud team.
All SMS authorisation requests will come from this phone number: 0437 126 492 and you should only reply to this number by SMS as it is a text-only service. You can talk to the team on 1300 705 750 if you are not able to reply by SMS or if you have any questions regarding the message you received.
If our team are not able to confirm a transaction with you by SMS they will call you from a local phone number, but you always can contact the team directly on 1300 705 750.
Not every transaction will trigger an SMS authentication request, but those that do will be quickly and conveniently managed with this new process to keep your banking safe and secure.
This SMS service is in addition to our existing Fraud monitoring program, and you may also receive calls from our fraud team to verify transactions instead of SMS messages.