Visa has informed us that it is working with law enforcement and Heartland Payment Systems, a U.S.- based card processing service, to investigate a possible compromise of card account information from the card processing service’s systems.  News reports indicate that this compromise occurred in 2008 and involved the "sniffing" of transactions between Heartland and the various merchants that use it for processing payments. Scott Valley Bank’s systems and information were not compromised.

Scott Valley Bank has been notified that a small number of its cardholders (approximately 100 as of this writing) may have utilized one or more of the merchants which processed through Heartland. We are in the process of obtaining the information we need on the affected accounts so that we can take steps to protect our cardholders through fraud monitoring and, if needed, by reissuing any SVB Visa Debit or Credit cards identified.

Should your card information be reported as compromised, you can expect to receive notification from us by letter. We will already have begun the process of issuing a new card to you.  That process takes 7-10 business days. Scott Valley Bank has had no reports of fraud on any affected accounts, so, for your convenience, Scott Valley Bank has decided to leave reported cards active for 10 business days following our notification from Visa to allow time for your replacement card to arrive. 

If you receive a notification letter and would like your card inactivated immediately, let us know by calling your local branch or 1-888-385-7111 option 2.

If you have not received a letter but are concerned regarding whether or not your card has been compromised, you may call your local branch and ask.  You will be asked to provide your name and the last 6 digits of your card number.  Our reference lists will be updated as new information is provided to us by Visa. We expect all reporting from Visa within the next 7 - 10 business days.

It is important for our consumer cardholders to know that they are protected against fraudulent purchases with Visa’s Zero Liability† policy. In addition to that, Scott Valley Bank has its own fraud monitoring service to protect your account. As always, we encourage our cardholders to carefully review their statements and to let us know right away if they see any charges they don’t recognize.