Beware where you use your card

It astonishes me that people use their cards on the websites of companies they know nothing about, often based in China, though that is irrelevant as websites can easily pretend to be based anywhere they please. The point is that there is no better way for a fraudster to collect card details than by setting up a website offering tempting electronic goods for sale at bargain prices and then just wait for people to post their card details.

Quite possibly you'll get your money back from the card company after much inconvenience, but it's not worth taking the risk. Your card company won't pay you until they get the money back from abroad and you may even have to go through a formal long-winded process leaving you out of pocket in the mean time.

I reported this news story on another website yesterday and it piqued my curiosity when I discovered that it had been removed from every site where it had previously appeared. Unless the story had been a hoax I knew I would be able to trace it and I did and, to assure the credence of the story it appears on a site from this body.

The Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU) is a unique pro-active police unit, with a national remit, formed as a partnership between Financial Fraud Action UK, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police together with the Home Office.

http://www.financialfraudaction.org.uk/cms/assets/1/22082014%20shah%20sentencing%20final.pdf

……. stole a PIN entry device from a South London pub before hacking into it to alter the device’s software. The compromised device was then manipulated to retain credit card data and PINs.

The fraudsters placed the device in restaurants and clubs throughout London allowing them to harvest the data from the magnetic stripe on the back of customers’ credit cards – a method known as ‘card skimming’ – along with capturing the PIN.

Customers would then be offered the compromised machine to make payment which would state "transaction declined" and then the real machine would be used and take payment properly, the compromised machine having recorded the card details from which copy cards would be made and the details used around the world.

Considering that the amount involved was £1.64 million and that only a miserable amount was recovered it is curious that the defendants only received suspended sentences, moreso because it highlights a massive vulnerability in making card payments.