The Critical Visibility Gap Between Marketplace Data and Checker, Real-Time Data Intelligence

Across the payments ecosystem, criminals need validated, “live” cards because stolen cards are the fuel for almost every form of online payment fraud. The sooner they confirm which cards work, the sooner they can monetize them and fraud can hide more easily. These cards include traditional consumer Visa and Mastercard branded cards from issuing banks, private label, commercial, and even gift cards. 

But here’s the problem: many organizations, including banks, don’t see these attacks happening, not because they lack technology, but because they lack visibility. The early signals don’t show up in their systems at all.

This is the “visibility gap” that continues to cost banks millions in fraud losses every year.

Marketplace Data: Important…but Far Too Late

For years, fraud teams have relied on Marketplace Data, the lists of stolen cards that appear for sale on dark-web shops. These lists, often obtained from breaches, infostealer logs, or underground marketplaces, give a rough sense of which cards may be exposed.

Marketplace Data has value. It shows:

• Which BINs are circulating underground

• When large breaches occur

• How many cards are being sold by geography or issuer

But Marketplace Data has two crippling limitations:

1. It’s reactive.

Cards usually appear on dark-web markets days, weeks, or even months after they are stolen. Because it is a marketplace, these cards may have been bought and sold many times. By the time an organization sees them, it's likely that criminals may already be testing or monetizing them.

2. It says nothing about card validity.

A card listed for sale may be expired, canceled, or blocked. Marketplace Data doesn’t reveal which cards remain active, and therefore doesn’t help banks know where fraud is actually imminent.

This gap can be especially dangerous during the holiday season. Fraud rings stockpile tens of thousands of stolen cards in early Q4, but marketplace listings only confirm exposure, not criminal activity or timing.

To stop fraud before it starts, organizations need something more immediate and more reliable: behavioral evidence of live card testing.

Checker Data: The Earliest, Most Actionable Warning Signal

Checker Data captures the exact moment criminals test cards across the internet, this is real-time behavioral intelligence, not scraped listings, not breach dumps, not forensic aftermath.

This is the earliest point in the fraud lifecycle where intent becomes visible.

Instead of relying on a dark-web posting, real-time intelligence data shows:

• Which BINs are being tested right now

• Which cards are being validated successfully

• Where testing is geographically clustered

• How quickly testing is accelerating

• Which testing tools, botnets, or attack methods are involved

And this early signal matters. As highlighted in a recent case study, one regional bank detected 25,000 compromised cards by monitoring real-time testing behavior, saving over $2.5 million in operational expense while preserving $7.5 million in revenue that would have been lost to customer churn and cardholder frustration.

The fundamental difference here is between knowing cards were stolen (Marketplace Data)…and knowing that criminals are actively preparing to use them (Real-time intelligence data).

Why Some Miss Seeing Card Testing Themselves

An organization’s fraud models, no matter how advanced, may not detect early testing for one simple reason:

Card testing happens at merchants that many don't see.

Criminals rarely test cards at well-protected, high-security ecommerce sites. Instead, they test them at:

• Small online stores

• Donation platforms

• Subscription trial signups

• Global merchants with weak AVS or no 3-D Secure

• Bots hitting thousands of micro-merchants at once

Organizations only see testing if an attacker attempts a transaction at a merchant using the issuer’s card. But in most attack cycles, criminals test hundreds of cards for hours or days before a single transaction ever reaches the issuing company’s systems.

That means fraud managers are trying to solve a problem operating almost entirely outside their field of view.

Closing the Gap: Why Real-Time Intelligence Matters

Real-time Intelligence Data offers organizations a fundamentally different approach:

• Detection within seconds, not weeks

• Action before fraud, not after

• Accurate, high-fidelity signals tied to real testing behavior

• Compliance-safe data (no illicit marketplace procurement)

• Protection from seasonal testing surges

Organizations don’t need to wait for fraud to appear in their own ledger. They can see attacks as they begin, across the entire internet.

This is the shift from reactive defense to proactive prevention.

myNetWatchman: Closes the Visibility Gap

The visibility gap doesn’t have to be a permanent feature of BIN testing or seasonal fraud.

myNetWatchman delivers the earliest alerts in the industry, detecting card-testing activity within seconds of the first probing attempt. By monitoring real-world testing behavior across the internet, myNetWatchman identifies compromised cards before fraud occurs, giving issuers the power to block, lock, or reissue with confidence.

If your organization wants to get ahead of testing surges, strengthen customer trust, and reduce fraud losses before they happen, contact myNetWatchman today to see how real-time Checker Intelligence can transform your fraud-prevention strategy. Read more about our Card Monitoring solution.