Fraud again

[coldfusion]

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@Dcowboy08 wrote:

I use RFID blocking cards in my wallet and other items to prevent scanning my cards.

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Even without RFID blocking that type of risk is pretty much just a red herring,  starting with the range of these cards is only a couple of inches.

The bigger risk comes from senarios like card skimmers or in restaurants where a server takes your card from you to a different area out of your sight to process the payment and then taking quick pics of the card's front and back with a cell phone camera before they walk back to hand your card back.

[Jnbmom]

I just don't get haven't used the card at all and now 5 charges for restaurants in a 2 day span that the creditor wouldn't elaborate on at all .

[smcj]

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@Jnbmom wrote:

I just don't get haven't used the card at all and now 5 charges for restaurants in a 2 day span that the creditor wouldn't elaborate on at all .

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If the card was fraudulently used *and then* disappeared from the online account portal *without you reporting the fraud first* it reeks of a fraud situation the issuer came to know about independently.  For all anyone knows in that context, it could have been a batch of cards, or a generic data breach, or or or or, rather than [just] your individual card.  For my part, I'd bank (no pun intended) on your card having been unfortunately one of many in some kind of batch event.  And in such event I'd expect them to tell you absolutely squat (Corporate Liability Management 101-style tactical).

I found it interesting that when my AMEX was compromised as I described, all the places where it was used/attempted to be used were 200 miles away not only from the Wendy's, but from where I was physically holding my own card in-hand.  That pointed to someone scanning at the Wendy's, but the card details being provided to someone in another city, who in turn put it on a physical card in short order and then either used it themselves or sold it to someone else who went walking around swiping in that 200-miles-away specific locality.  Oddly educational, that whole situation.

[crystal626]

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@coldfusion wrote:

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@Dcowboy08 wrote:

I use RFID blocking cards in my wallet and other items to prevent scanning my cards.

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Even without RFID blocking that type of risk is pretty much just a red herring,  starting with the range of these cards is only a couple of inches.

The bigger risk comes from senarios like card skimmers or in restaurants where a server takes your card from you to a different area out of your sight to process the payment and then taking quick pics of the card's front and back with a cell phone camera before they walk back to hand your card back.

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Not just the distance but contrary to popular belief, these chips are microprocessors aka mini computers, that can't just be cloned remotely. They encrypt the data and many of them use one time transaction codes that simply can't be duplicated. It would be major news, and break the entire banking system, if this security was able to be breached easily.

[xenon3030]

Does it get managed by Synchrony or JCP? Either of them possibly suck (or both ).

[KatzNDawgs]

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@crystal626 wrote:

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@KatzNDawgs wrote:

Can you use virtual card #s to reduce fraud? I also hated having to get a new card/# yearly from fraud issues. Virtual #s have helped bring that down a lot.

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There are very few cards that support them.

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Often it isn't necessarily card specific, but if you load your card into a mobile pay service like google wallet and pay using that, they can assign a virtual card # to the transaction so it can't be stolen and reused.