Why I learned to love eCommerce

This is really just an update to my previous Visa Theft post, but I thought I would use he chance to make a point. It will always be easier for some kid to punk your card than to hack in to a secure database and steal it. But I get to the ending before even starting at the beginning; here is the response I got from my Bank this morning:

Upon reviewing these charges, we determined that all of these purchases were done manually, meaning without a Visa card present. As you have confirmed that you did not perform these transactions, we must conclude that a third party has gained access to your Visa number and is using the information fraudulently. As a result, we will need to block your current Visa card number in order to secure your account and a new one will be issued to you.

The important part is "a third party has gained access to your Visa number". Now how did a third party get my Number? Simple, I unwittingly gave it to them. You give your Visa to a third party every time you use it. All it really takes is some snot-nosed kid with a grade 9 education who knows how to run a scam to jot down your number and viola: Credit Card fraud. This is why I don't worry about using my card to make transactions over the internet. It's so much more likely to happen the old fashioned way. The good news is grabbing just the faceplate off a Visa really doesn't offer a lot of options on how to abuse it. Without the SSID or even basic address information - frankly I'm surprised there even was a way to still use it.

Anyway, case closed as far as I'm concerned. Now I just have to go and re-setup all my automatic payments before that time of the month rolls around. What a pain.

Here's a good question/thought: When will Visa stop accepting Manual/Non-card personal transactions?

UPDATE: The real victim of all this? My credit card number. My old one was so easy to remember (okay, maybe too easy). My new one make no logical sense at all. I'm going to have to apply some European telephone number type system to even remember it.

If you didn't know, European phone numbers are written in whatever order makes them easier to read and remember. So 655-6050 might be written down 655 60 50 and 251-5048 might be 25 15 048.

Posted at 07:11 AM to Personal By: John Fairley