Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Credit Card Fraud

Credit card fraud is exploding. Anita Ramasastry examines the problem:

How did the thieves get consumer information in the first place? Reports indicate that the problem probably stemmed from a security breach at a major office supply retailer - one that reportedly (and perhaps unwittingly) uses cash register software that stores customer PINs.

This was not supposed to happen: It is against MasterCard and Visa rules for merchants to retain sensitive debit card information, such as mag-stripe data (the information on the back stripe of the card) or PIN numbers. Indeed, merchants who store such information can be fined by the companies, by agreement - for they may have made customers sitting ducks for fraud.


Read the entire article here.

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