There has been a large influx of fraudulent activity on university-owned NelNet Commerce Manager pages that has prompted the Ohio State Treasurer's Office and NelNet to implement a new authentication feature via email code.
With the new security feature, when someone first visits a NelNet link, they will be asked to provide their email address. This will then prompt an email to be sent to the user containing a five-digit code that they’ll need to enter before being able to access the payment gateway page. While this new step adds a little time to the transaction, it is an important tool to stop hackers from trying to run scripts of stolen credit card data (usually for small-dollar transactions) by the hundreds or thousands to see which card numbers are still active. An example of why this feature is needed: the Office of Student Life recently had more than $100,000 of fraudulent activity in one overnight period.