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A rant about credit card theft
What I really hate is the inconvenience for you and me. We have to worry - 'Hey, I ate at that place six months ago!' We have to compulsively check out accounts, we have to decide whether or not to do the credit monitoring (major PITB, especially if your credit history is damaged with incorrect information like mine), we have to go through the hassle of getting our cards cancelled and not being usable until replacements arrive.
The banks really don't care as long as the cash flows. THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS. One of the security companies brought in to investigate and mitigate the situation said "I never thought in 2005 (or maybe he said 2015) that in 2020 I'd still be seeing magnetic stripe compromises."
But hey - we're the USA! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! In stolen credit cards.
There was nothing preventing these machines from being replaced when we had a booming economy, except MasterCard and Visa didn't push for it. Because? The gasoline retail industry didn't want to have to pay to upgrade all of those gas pumps.
THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS.
I don't bother to post about a lot of credit card thefts because it just happens so damn often. It's only when there's several million cards or someone outrageously famous that gets clobbered. And now MC/V won't push for replacement terminals - or just fund it themselves - because the economy is going to be in the toilet for several more years to come and merchants won't be able to afford it. Which means there will be more of these thefts in the next 5-10 years.
I've had my banking information compromised precisely ONCE. And it wasn't by one of these credit card thefts. It was 10-11 years ago, I was in Phoenix for a couple of days before going to Las Vegas for a convention, I was checking my bank balance and found a charge for a gas station in one of the Carolinas for $85. I hadn't been there in something like 5 years, it was definitely hinky. Called the bank, they confirmed it was fraud and turned off my debit card.
But it wasn't a card or card processor that got hacked. It was a check processing facility that somehow got ahold of my account information. I have no idea how that happened.
My wife and I have had numerous card replacements, but have never had a dime misplaced. Several friends have been victimized, one lost money from the Target hack before it became public!
It's just so bloody frustrating. It could have been put to an end years ago, but Visa and Mastercard didn't do it. And it's just going to go on and on and on.
Oh, speaking of data breaches: you heard Barnes and Noble got clobbered, didn't you? Someone got in and made off with a bunch of info. "But no customer credit card information was stolen." Yeah, we'll see if that statement rings true in another month or so.
Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a pissy mood. Multiple government administrations have not made the industry fix things. The industry hasn't fixed things. So nothing gets fixed. And it will continue this way while the rest of the world looks on in wonder at yet another weird thing that Americans do.
The banks really don't care as long as the cash flows. THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS. One of the security companies brought in to investigate and mitigate the situation said "I never thought in 2005 (or maybe he said 2015) that in 2020 I'd still be seeing magnetic stripe compromises."
But hey - we're the USA! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! In stolen credit cards.
There was nothing preventing these machines from being replaced when we had a booming economy, except MasterCard and Visa didn't push for it. Because? The gasoline retail industry didn't want to have to pay to upgrade all of those gas pumps.
THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS.
I don't bother to post about a lot of credit card thefts because it just happens so damn often. It's only when there's several million cards or someone outrageously famous that gets clobbered. And now MC/V won't push for replacement terminals - or just fund it themselves - because the economy is going to be in the toilet for several more years to come and merchants won't be able to afford it. Which means there will be more of these thefts in the next 5-10 years.
I've had my banking information compromised precisely ONCE. And it wasn't by one of these credit card thefts. It was 10-11 years ago, I was in Phoenix for a couple of days before going to Las Vegas for a convention, I was checking my bank balance and found a charge for a gas station in one of the Carolinas for $85. I hadn't been there in something like 5 years, it was definitely hinky. Called the bank, they confirmed it was fraud and turned off my debit card.
But it wasn't a card or card processor that got hacked. It was a check processing facility that somehow got ahold of my account information. I have no idea how that happened.
My wife and I have had numerous card replacements, but have never had a dime misplaced. Several friends have been victimized, one lost money from the Target hack before it became public!
It's just so bloody frustrating. It could have been put to an end years ago, but Visa and Mastercard didn't do it. And it's just going to go on and on and on.
Oh, speaking of data breaches: you heard Barnes and Noble got clobbered, didn't you? Someone got in and made off with a bunch of info. "But no customer credit card information was stolen." Yeah, we'll see if that statement rings true in another month or so.
Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a pissy mood. Multiple government administrations have not made the industry fix things. The industry hasn't fixed things. So nothing gets fixed. And it will continue this way while the rest of the world looks on in wonder at yet another weird thing that Americans do.
When will it ever end
Luckily for me it was with my dad's credit card number. I'll have to ask him to be more vigilant about his bank statements. (My parents are the perfect targets for credit card fraud; constantly eating out and never checking their bank statements)
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I've seen stoopider configurations.
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The thing that gets me about this is the number of American companies that won't ship to the rest of the world because then they'd have to follow different credit card regulations.
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That does seem to be about the size of it. It truly has become 'privatize the profits, socialize the losses.'