Your Card In Their Hands

Is there anyone left who hasn't had their credit cards defrauded? I'm extremely careful with mine but recently used it all over the West Midlands when I was working there as a field producer. I used it to buy petrol and a couple of meals in a few places, and lo and behold, it was cloned and used to withdraw cash from a machine in the East of India. The bank stopped the card instantaneously but didn't bother to tell me. I only found out I was £600 down when I was trying to buy a rail ticket and Virgin's website rejected me. As crime it's all very civilised. I filled out a form and got a refund in a matter of days.

This morning it emerged that fraudsters have managed to insert sniffing technology in the card readers on shop counters - the ones you punch your number in while the shop worker politely averts his eyes. Petrol stations in the West Midlands are the focus of a police enquiry, funnily enough. My take on it is that we have nothing much to fear from the big retailers, but I may start paying cash for petrol.

Your Card In Their Hands

The phone rang last night and a man from my bank told me (after running though a couple of security questions) that there were some transactions on my credit card that required clarification.

Weightwatchers? He asked
That's legit, I replied. (Embarrassing).
Autoglass?
That's the bill from the toerags who investigated my car while I was on my hols, said I. (Grrr)
£1.80 from itunes?
Er..I've never bought any mp3s off itunes - ever. (Wha??)
How about £1500 from the Natwest Currency centre in Peterborough?
That ain't me.(Jesu Cristus!)

Fortunately it was the massive currency trade that flagged it up, and the transaction was refused. But where was the protection from the much vaunted chip and pin system introduced with much fanfare two years ago?

The crims have stepped up their game, he told me. They get jobs in data handling centres, duplicate your credit card details into a USB memory key when nobody's looking then sell on the details to other crims via the net. It's rife, and so much safer than taking a sawn off to the local branch with Ed the wheels in the motor outside.

On reflection, this is how ID cards will fail. There'll be a chip, a PIN, your records in a sliver of metallicised plastic - but your details in some data handling centre staffed by kids and others on £6 an hour. The anonymous and ever increasing power of the net means that our details will be for sale in no time.