Debit Card Fraud - odd test transactions

Hello! This isn't a compliance question...attempting to reach out for ideas on how to stop these transactions.

We are seeing fraudulent "test" transactions from merchants with names such as OHDOIUXWN, BVSANJOBHVWJNX1, and ETHBHXFBEKV. These appear to be random keyboard swipes. We are putting blocks in place that are stopping some of these transactions but the fraudsters are of course, regularly changing their patterns.
How are these types of "merchants" even set up through a merchant processor???

Would love to hear any thoughts on this.

From my experience, you're always chasing these. The minute you block one like you said, they change. Some processors will allow you to use wildcards in place of some characters, so if you have some that are close and they just change the last few digits, then you might be able to put wildcard characters in the last few spots. Other than that, you might be able to create (or have your processor create) some more specific rules if they're always from a particular area, or you can put in rules to escalate authorizations for those dollar amounts, etc.

Good luck as this is really frustrating.

Keep in mind that even if you can successfully block the merchant, you have a compromised card out there.