The Better Business Bureau is warning a security breach in the United States could affect Canadian consumers, especially those who hop across the border to shop.

Both Visa and MasterCard are investigating transactions from January and February after Global Payments, a major payment card processing firm in the United States, reported its system had been hacked on Friday.

"If the bad guys got into their system, which they admitted they did, they potentially could have taken ten million or more cards," security analyst Avivah Litan said.

Better Business Bureau spokesperson Mark Fernandes says B.C. consumers, particularly those who have recently shopped in the United States, should look at financial statements from the past couple of months for anything suspicious.

"If it's something that you can't remember doing, then more than likely it could be a fraudulent transaction," Fernandes said.

Although Global Payments is based in the United States, Fernandes says there is a strong possibility Canadians are at risk.

"The nature of these types of companies is that they work across borders; they're multinational companies and they process hundreds of thousands of payments," he said.

Andrea Woroch of Verizon Business advises people to contact their card issuers immediately if they see anything questionable on their bills.

"Lots of consumers overlook little charges that are being made on their statement, and that's how people are continually able to trick them and deceive them and steal their information," Woroch said in an interview last year.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre warns credit card scams are estimated to be just as lucrative as the drug trade.To protect yourself, only provide card numbers via phone or Internet to companies you trust and protect your pin at all times.They also advise people to beware of any emails claiming to be a company or financial institution that asks for account information.

Experts also warn the Global Payments breach could lead to another scam.

"If you receive any emails supposedly from Global Payments about a security breach, it may be a phishing attempt, especially in the next couple weeks," Fernandes said.

Global Payments is expected to provide more details on the scale and scope of the security breach on Monday.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Bhinder Sajan