Credit Card Security On The Road

brianharrison

Well-known member
We just went through our third account hack since last May. I thought about posting here for all to see some of the trials and tribulations that affected us and how you are not quite protected the way you think you are.

If there is interest I will post up.

Interest from me...... I will search for your new thread.

I find it helpful to evaluate my scenario via experiences of others - good judgement comes from bad experiences.....

Brian
 

danemayer

Well-known member
I've separated my purchases across 3 cards; two from Bank of America and one from Citibank.

The Citibank card is exclusively used for Amazon.com.

One of the BOA cards is used exclusively for face-to-face transactions and point of sale terminals.

The other BOA card number is never given out. I use it to generate "ShopSafe" virtual card numbers for online and telephone purchases. If a virtual card number is stolen it does the thief no good. It's only good 1) up to the limit I establish (which is usually based on the amount of the charge), and 2) once it's used with a particular merchant ID, it won't work with ANY OTHER merchant ID.

BOA's virtual card program is called ShopSafe. Citibank has the same thing called Citi Virtual Account Numbers. The operation is similar. You log into their website, or use their downloaded program to create a virtual card number. You set the expiration date up to 1 year away and set the transaction(s) limit.

Before I leave for a trip, I may generate 6 $50 cards good for 3 months so I don't have to log in everytime I need a $50 card.

Can't use the virtual numbers at Amazon because depending on the origin of the item, different merchant IDs may come into play. There's a similar problem with Ebay that drives me to use Paypal there.

Best of all, if a virtual number is compromised, there's no need to replace your real credit card. The stolen number doesn't work and the theft doesn't compromise your real number.
 

porthole

Retired
Interest from me...... I will search for your new thread.

I find it helpful to evaluate my scenario via experiences of others - good judgement comes from bad experiences.....

Brian





Here ya go............

//heartlandowners.org/showthread.ph...he-Target-hack?p=345727&viewfull=1#post345727
 

JanAndBill

Well-known member
Dan, the virtual number thing is a good idea, unfortunately one of my card companies doesn't offer it, and the other just stopped doing it.
 

MurrayN.

Well-known member
Up in Canada, 90%+ of the time that you use a credit card in a restaurant they will bring a wireless machine to your table and you do your credit card payment right there. After 19 years I have finally got back to Hawaii for a winter holiday but have been shocked to find that no one out here has tableside machines! Are you kidding me?? I am paying cash at all restaurants and using my cards at stores where I can stand beside the till. Is this the way it is in most of the continental US?
 

ncc1701e

Well-known member
Every card I have says "CID - check id" on the back and the number of times someone asks for ID is almost nill. Most clerks don't even look or seem to care.
 

JohnD

Moved on to the next thing...
Checking ID's is far from fool proof . . .

Every card I have says "CID - check id" on the back and the number of times someone asks for ID is almost nill. Most clerks don't even look or seem to care.

Even if they check ID . . . that doesn't mean that the person using the card is the card's owner.

I'm in the retail business, and I can tell you that today's thieves have most, if not all, bases covered.

We've been taken several times, even when checking ID's!

I got hit three years ago during the holiday rush . . . roughly a $4,000 sale!

The card bearer had an ID (Colorado DL) that matched the card . . . and had her picture on it!

20 minutes later the police showed up and told me that the real card holders purse had been stolen at a Border's store in a shopping center not far away from my store only 30 minutes before it was used at my store, and then a couple of other local stores.

And as it turned out, the gal that stole the card had an ID maker in her car so she could steal a credit card . . . make an ID using the original card holders DL and place her own photo on it . . . then laminate it to make it virtually identical to the real thing!

She finally was caught a few months later (partially thanks to security cameras) and was part of a ring of credit card fraud in the Denver metro area.
 
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