Card Theft Protection

There are many ways your bank credit cards, debit cards and so on with their details can be stolen by criminals. They use social communication processes, technology and employ “inside job” schemes to do this.

“Social Communications Processes” means criminals contacting you through voice call, texts, e-mails and social media in order to trick you into revealing your bank card details. Usually they impersonate people of authority like bank or government employees to intimidate you and to provide an element of trust for you to provide them your bank card details.

“Technology” means criminals using their knowledge of computer software, hardware and processes to steal your bank card data information.

“Skimming” devices are used to steal information from your bank card when you swipe them at ATMs, POS and other card swiping machines. These skimming devices are inconspicuously attached to these card swiping machines that unsuspecting and less careful people do not even know they are inserting their cards to these skimming devices.

These skimming devices can be so sophisticated that they do not even need to swipe the card of a person in order for them to steal the card details of that person. Contactless card swiping machine fraud security are useless against them. There are even bluetooth skimming devices that from a distance can steal the electronic data of a card swiped at an ATM or a card inside the wallet of a person.

Criminals also infect the websites of merchants with malware. These malware gathers the website user data and sends it to the criminals whenever the website user enters his personal and financial data in the website data entry form which the criminals already hijacked. Criminals are also known to infect or hack the financial systems of companies to get the financial details of their clients.

“Inside Job” means criminals in cahoots with the employees of the merchant to steal the card details of their clients. They are usually the servers in gas stations, restaurants, shops and so on. People usually hand over their cards to servers who take the card to swipe them in their cash registers which are usually out of sight. This is all the time these criminals need to steal the financial data from your card.

Bank card data theft crime is so systemised now that many criminal organisations some from different countries cooperate with each other to do mass card data theft. There are those that steal and sell personal and bank card data in the dark web and social media and those that buy these data and use it to buy goods for resale in the blackmarket or just take the card owner’s money straight out.

You could read this article from businessinsider.com titled Credit-card fraud surges 35% as coronavirus freezes the economy and wipes out jobs to get a further idea of the situation in 2020. You could also Google “Credit card fraud increase” for other information.

Surely we need protection from this crime. We cannot just stop using our bank cards because they are such an integral part of our daily financial life. One of the best way to protect against bank card theft crime is to choose a bank with strong anti-fraud policy.

My bank called me up to inform me that my credit card is being used in Europe when I am not anywhere near Europe during that time. When they verified with me that this is a fraudulent transaction they promptly cancelled my credit card and gave me a replacement credit card. Ask your bank if they have such policies.

You can also pay in cash or use prepaid debit cards when you pay at shops, restaurants and so on. Take care to top up the debit card with small amounts only. This way if your debit card financial information is stolen you would only lose a small amount. When paying for online purchases always try to use the COD (Cash on Delivery) option.

Conclusion

The less your bank card information is recorded in your bank and merchant’s online, financial software or even written records the less of a likelihood it would be stolen.