Online Fake Credit Card Number Generators: A Cautionary Guide

Hari Mahesh

There may be many e-commerce websites that you may have come across where you need to enter your credit card details to start a trial period. Similarly, sometimes, we need to test an e-commerce application where we need to enter a credit card number. In these scenarios, we need a fake credit card number generator to help us test the application.

Let’s learn more about such generators, their working principles, features, risks, and limitations.

What are Credit Card Number Generators?

A fake credit card number generator is an online tool to generate random, valid-looking credit card numbers. These numbers are often used for testing and validation purposes. The primary use of these generators comes in e-commerce applications and payment gateways. The fake credit card numbers look like actual credit cards but are not linked to financial institutions.

Using an actual credit card for testing can cause security concerns and accidentally place an order, resulting in losing money. Most credit card generators use Luhn’s technique. Developed by Hans Peter Luhn, an engineer at IBM, in 1954, this algorithm is widely used in the financial industry to check the validity of credit card numbers and other similar numbers.

Usage of Credit Card Generator

The primary usage of credit card generators lies around testing and validation purposes in various business areas. Let’s look into more details.

Software and Payment Gateway Testing

• E-commerce Development: The developers who create e-commerce websites use the CC generators to test their payment processing system, ensuring the code handles the card data correctly.
• Payment Gateway Testing: Payment gateway systems are tested to ensure no security threats are encountered when handling card data. The whole transaction flow is smooth, and there are no glitches.
• Fraud Detection Systems: Companies developing anti-fraud software use these numbers to test their systems’ ability to detect fraudulent transactions.

Educational Purpose

• Academic Training: In educational fields such as universities or other technical courses, students learning about e-commerce, finance, or cybersecurity can use these CC generators to understand the whole mechanism of credit card transactions.
• Demonstrations: These CC generators are used for classroom demonstrations to teach about credit card processing, security measures, and fraud detection without using actual card details.

Quality Assurance and Compliance Testing

• Compliance with Standards: Businesses must comply with standards like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Using generated numbers helps in testing compliance without risking sensitive customer data. Read here how to build an ADA-compliant app.
• System Reliability and Performance Testing: Testers can access how the application handles large transactions using the CC generator, ensuring reliability and efficiency.

Application Prototyping

• Design and User Experience Testing: During the design phase of an application with a payment processing module, fake credit card numbers can be used to test the user interface and experience without conducting real transactions.

Validation Tools

• Format and Structure Checking: CC generators are often used to create validation tools to ensure that entered credit card numbers adhere to the correct format before processing.

Mechanism Behind Credit Card Generators

As discussed earlier, Luhn’s technique is the mechanism behind Credit Card generators. Before going to that, first, we need to understand two important parts of the structure of a credit card they are:

Major Industry Identifier (MII)

The MII is the first digit on the credit card. This indicates the primary industry of the card issuer. The main purpose is to categorize the card issuer based on the type of business or industry. There are different categories:

• 3: Travel and entertainment (e.g., American Express and Diners Club)
• 4 & 5: Banking and financial institutions (e.g., Visa and MasterCard)
• 6: Merchandising and banking/financial
• 7: Petroleum companies

Issuer Identification Number (IIN)

The IIN consists of the first six digits of the credit card number, including the MII. The primary purpose of IIN is to identify the institution that issued the card. It is critical for routing transactions correctly and for security purposes. It also helps to understand the issues of identification, card type determination, geographic location determination, transaction processing, and fraud prevention.

Pros and cons of Credit Card Generators

Online Credit Card Generators vs Payment Gateways

One drawback of using credit card generators is that you may not be able to complete a purchase due to a lack of actual card details. Payment gateways will identify these cards as invalid, and the transaction will be canceled. This raises the question: how can we effectively test a payment gateway?

The answer lies in utilizing ‘test credit cards‘ provided by most major payment gateway providers to perform positive/negative testing scenarios. These cards come with various conditions, allowing you to choose the one that aligns with your specific test criteria. By using the corresponding test card and integrating the payment gateway’s sandbox environment with your staging site, you can ensure successful transaction processing and complete execution of your use case.

The provided test cards go beyond facilitating positive flows. They also include card details for simulating negative scenarios like fraudulent cards and blocked cards, enabling comprehensive testing of your payment gateway integration.

Let’s check the top 10 payment gateway providers and the test card details they provide.

Top Payment Gateway Providers

Stripe

Stripe is the leading gateway provider globally. So, if you have integrated your application with Stripe payment gateway, they provide test cards to validate the transaction. For interactive testing, which means a positive flow validation, you can use the below card:

• Card Number – 4242 4242 4242 4242
• CVV – any three-digit number, four-digit if you need to try American Express
• Valid Upto – Any future date

So other than the above details, they also provide the following:

• Cards by brand – Based on brands like Visa, Master card, Diners Club, etc
• Cards by Country – Based on country-specific
• Declined Payments – For testing payments, declined scenarios
• Fraud prevention – For fraudulent credit card scenarios
• Disputes – For cards having disputes with the banks
• Refunds – For processing refund options

You can find more details on the Stripe website

Braintree

Paypal acquired Braintree, a leading mobile and web online payment provider based in Chicago. Braintree provides cards for testing the following:

• Valid card numbers – This is for testing valid scenarios. They have provided cards with different brands.
• Card numbers for unsuccessful verification – These cards will simulate unsuccessful card verification.
• Card numbers with type indicators – If you need credit cards for various types, like health cards, prepaid cards, etc. You can use cards from this section.
• Card numbers with other information – Cards are bound to be region-specific for testing.

Find more details about test cards on the Braintree website.

PayPal

PayPal is a leading online payment provider globally. PayPal provides test cards for testing the sandbox environment. Also, they provide credit card generators with country and brand options. You can use PayPal’s test cards for the following scenarios:

• Successful payments
• Card error scenarios
• Rejection scenarios

For example, PayPal’s test card 371449635398431 is an American Express card that you can use for positive tests. You can check out the PayPal tools page to get more details.

Square

Square Payment Gateway is one of the leading gateway providers across the United States and other countries. Square also provides a detailed list of test cards for testing various scenarios.

• Positive flow cards
• Cards with SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)
• Card details with risk testing

Square has provided detailed information about the cards and scenarios where to use the cards.

Chargebee

Chargebee is one of the leading subscription billing and revenue management platforms supporting businesses of all sizes. Chargebee supports various payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, and Square, making it versatile for global operations. If you have integrated your application with Chargebee, they also provide test cards to validate the payment gateway. They have the following types of card details.

• Positive flows
• Gateway verification failure cards
• Insufficient fund cards
• 3DS cards

Here, you can get more details about Chargebee test cards.

Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay provides a sandbox environment for testing the payment gateway integration flows. For that, they provide test cards of various types:

• Non 3-D secure cards – Lists non 3-D secure credit cards with card type Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, etc.
• 3-D secure Credit cards – Lists 3-D secure credit cards with card type Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, etc.
• Declined & Uncertain Cards – We can use the cards provided to test negative scenarios for decline and uncertain cases.
• Cards for installments – These cards support EMI for the products customers buy.
• Debit Cards – Other than credit cards, they support debit cards too.

Find more details about Amazon pay test cards here.

Adyen

Adyen is a leading global company that offers a comprehensive payment platform allowing businesses to accept transactions online, on mobile devices, and at the point of sale. If you check their website, they have provided a detailed list of test card numbers for most brands.

They have test cards for Visa, Master, Amex, BCMC, China UnionPay, Diners, Discover, etc.

Another feature they provided was the ability to generate test card numbers online from their website or use API. You can find Adyen’s test card details here. You can also create custom test cards.

Authorize.NET

Authorize.net is one of the digital payment industry’s oldest and most established payment gateways. Here are the test card numbers for different card brands:

Get more test card details on the Authorize.net’s website.

Read a good article on how to perform Authorize.net testing.

PayJunction

Established in 2000, PayJunction provides integrated payment solutions that facilitate electronic payment processing for in-person and online transactions. They have provided multiple test card details for each brand. So, if you are integrating PayJunction, you can test the gateway using PayJunction’s test information.

Razorpay

Razorpay is an Indian payment gateway solution that caters to various payment services, including online, offline, and contactless payments, making it a comprehensive financial services platform. Here are the test card details for Razorpay:

You can check this Razorpay tutorial to get the test card details they have provided. The data is limited, and there is little for negative validations.

How Safe is it to Use testRigor’s Card Generator

As we mentioned in the pros and cons, one of the severe threats put forward by all these online CC generators is the security concern; injection of malware or scams into applications can cause severe issues with security. That’s where testRigor, a generative AI-backed tool, comes into the picture.

If you are using testRigor for your automation, unlike other tools, you don’t have to call the credit card generator separately using third-party integrations. You can generate the credit card in the automation test step itself with a plain English command. Here is the straightforward syntax:

generate from template “4###-####-####-####”, then enter into “card” and save as “generatedCard”

The above command performs three actions:

• Generate – Generates the credit card, which is a Visa credit card number
• Fill – Fills the credit card number to the card field in the application
• Save – Saves the credit card number under a variable for future usage

This is more secure as testRigor does not call any third-party API to generate credit card numbers, eliminating the risk of any security breach. Moreover, you can generate the number, fill it in the relevant text field, and save it in a variable, all in a single English command.

open url "https://www.amazon.com"
click "Sign In"
enter stored value "email" into "email"
click "Continue"
enter stored value "password" into "password"
click "Login"
enter "Men's Printed Shirt" roughly to the left of "search"
click "Search"
click on image from stored value "Men's Printed Shirt" with less than "10" % discrepancy
click "Add to Cart"
click "Cart"
click "Checkout"
click "Pay by Credit Card"
generate from template "4enter###-####-####-####", then enter into "card" and save as "generatedCard"
enter stored value "expiry" into "valid till"
enter stored value "cvv" into "cvv"
click "Place Order"

Did you notice in the above example how simple it is to use testRigor’s credit card generation method? It is not just simple; it’s ultra-secure. No third-party insecure tools are needed. One tool quickly solves all your testing needs, whether web, mobile, API, or desktop.

Read the top testRigor’s features here.

Conclusion

Validating the payment gateway is very critical while testing the application. However, handling real credit card information is hazardous as it raises security concerns. That’s why many organizations use online credit card generators. As there are booming online card generators, it’s always better to check if that particular tool we are approaching is safe and secure.

Also, for real testing, we may need to depend on the test cards provided by payment card providers. So testRigor ensures your freedom to test positive and negative scenarios. You can generate an online card number using testRigor or save the test cards from different payment card providers and use them for testing. That’s the simplicity and advantage of using testRigor.

You can try it by signing up for a free trial here.

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