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Need help to identify if a provided credit number is real or virtual

by grahamgooch on 3/24/25, 7:12 PM with 9 comments

I’m running into a particular problem that I’m not able to solve. I need to be able to identify if a provided. Credit card number is a real card number or a virtual card number.

To be clear - I just need to know if the card is a virtual card.

Is there any API service out there that can provide provide this information?:

Real-World Example:

Let’s say you have a real Bank of America Visa card. You go to the BoA app and generate a virtual card • primary/real card: 4111 1111 1111 1111 Virtual card (temporary): 5278 3412 9182 4470

Why Fraudsters Use Virtual Cards They can create many cards quickly using stolen or fake data Each card works long enough to pay fraud

  • by gregjor on 3/25/25, 2:47 AM

    If you get an auth on the card with the information provided the bank has to take responsibility for fraud, at least in the US. I don’t think you can tell if a card number corresponds to a “real” card or not. Some cards, such as the Apple card, don’t even have numbers embossed on them anymore.

    Look at the API for your payment processor. I know they can identify debit and prepaid cards. Beyond that I don’t think they can reveal much about the card.

  • by leros on 3/25/25, 6:52 PM

    A virtual card is just as legitimate as a physical card. The numbers are just account ids basically. In my business, I setup virtual cards for many vendors.

    Sounds like you're trying to detect fraud. There are fraud detection platforms particularly designed for checkout fraud. Instead of re-inventing the wheel with a theory you have, I would look into some of those solutions that are fairly robust taking into account many different factors and often data from across merchants.

  • by pickle-wizard on 3/27/25, 4:06 PM

    I haved looked much into Virtual Cards. Do they have the same BIN as a physical card. There are public lists of BINs. You could grab all the virtual card BINs and block them. Though that would take some maintenance as new ones are added.

    Also it is likely that your merchant processor offers this as a service. You should speak with them. Back we I worked for a processor we offered all kinds of different logic on different card types. They are not usually turned on by default and you have to request they be turned on. One that our customers frequently requested was to block pre-paid cards.

  • by anon743448 on 3/25/25, 11:56 AM

    > Why Fraudsters Use Virtual Cards They can create many cards quickly using stolen or fake data Each card works long enough to pay fraud

    So would real card.

  • by gsck on 3/26/25, 2:35 PM

    You cant. There is no difference between them, aside from one of the numbers has never been printed.

    I can't see why this would be more of an issue than any other type of card?

  • by solardev on 3/25/25, 6:49 AM

    Can't you perform an auth hold on them to verify whether the card has enough funds, without actually charging it? Shouldn't matter if the number was temporary?

  • by uncomplexity_ on 3/25/25, 5:32 AM

    why not just use stripe