Somebody tried to buy airline tickets in the UK on my check card today.
Thankfully the airline ticket purchase was declined. My card has been locked and I will be getting a new one.
Bulky or not, all the more reason to start carrying cash. Dammit.
This probably stems from a purchase I made at Barnes & Noble less than a month ago. The B & N's here in NJ, specifically the one in Howell, NJ had someone tamper with their credit card machines.
It happened in at least 63 stores. Someone had to have access to the card machines or so it seems. Similar cases have occurred before in other chain stores. I wonder if someone on the inside is swapping-out readers or if they're accessible via the net.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/24/technology/barnes--noble-hack/index.html
The cash registers in most stores are connected to a master computer by Wifi links. The links are not always encrypted. A vehicle can sit outside the store and collect the credit card information with a lap top computer hooked to a simple home built antenna system, the plans of which can be found on the Internet.
It happened to a neighbor here about this time of year. She normally used a credit card for gas and a few items that totalled less than $200 a month and always paid the balance every month. She had done some early Christmas shopping at a major retail store, arrived home and the phone rang just a little later. The credit card service provider was calling to verify a $500 purchase, because it was out of her normal buying pattern. They asked her if she had possession of the credit card. She said yes, as she had just used it at a local store. They asked her to verify the card was in her possession. She did and it was in her pocketbook. They asked her to verify the purchase. She did not make the purchase and did not verify that she did. They told her to call the local police department and report the theft event. They cancelled that card account and sent her a new card with a different number. The police said this was not a single event or isolated incident and explained how the purchase was made. They also had a rash of those incidents reported. I outlined the scenario in the above details. They later caught the trio and they had been doing quite well with their scheme.
Just saw this on line this morning:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/10/24/barnes-noble-bugs-planted-in-credit-card- readers-at-63-stores-nationwide/
Dick, that is not a very interesting website to visit, unless you have about 15 minutes to view their spam and commercials first.