Credit card insecurity -- Old dogs, new tricks

 
Scammers, who have already obtained your credit card number in other ways, call your house pretending to be the fraud and security department of your credit card company.

TOP STORIES Government intervenes in warrantless wiretapping lawsuit Commtouch unveils image-based spam defense Verizon sued over NSA surveillance US spy agency building database of every call ever made Email bomber heads back to court Zombie master Jeanson Ancheta sentenced to 5 years in prison New York man to settle in Washington's first spyware case US demand for college wiretaps questioned Russian virus distributor convicted Corporate instant messaging on the rise Court slams former spam king over spyware Hacker charged with stealing information from military MPAA releases new piracy loss data Spam King Alan Ralsky not jailed Consumers in the dark about latest tech buzzwords more

They sound very official and they claim your card was flagged by security for demonstrating an unusual purchase pattern, usually in an amount under $500.

You deny making the purchase. Then the scam artist reassures you it will show up on your next statement.

The scammer then gives you a phony control number to document the fraud claim and asks you to provide the security number code (CVV/CVC/CID) from the card to prove that you have your card.

After getting the security number code, the scammer then typically makes a purchase within 15 minutes in the same amount of the suspicious activity he pretended to alert you to at the beginning of the call.

CVV (Card Verification Value) code is an authentication procedure established by credit card companies to further efforts towards reducing fraud for Internet and phone transactions. It consists of requiring a card holder to enter the CVV number in at transaction time to verify that the card is on hand. The CVV code is a security feature for "card not present" transactions, and appears on most major credit and debit cards. This feature is a three- or four-digit code which provides a cryptographic check of the information embossed on the card. Therefore, the CVV code is not part of the card number itself.

How do you avoid being taken advantage of?

-- Never give out data if you didn't place the call. Don't give the code to anyone who calls and requests it - no matter how official they sound.

-- If you're concerned when someone calls, hang up and call the toll free number on the back of your credit card.

-- Ask to speak to the fraud department and see if they have the same information you were just given. If not, you know you just escaped being scammed.

-- Likewise, never give out data in response to an E-mail. That's how phishing works.


Each credit card company has its own name for the CVV code, but it functions the same for all major card types. (VISA refers to the code as CVV2, MasterCard calls it CVC2, and American Express calls it CID.)

	AMEX A four digit non-embossed number on the face of the card.
	Discover A three digit non-embossed number on the back of the card printed within the signature panel after the account number.
	Mastercard A three digit non-embossed number on the back of the card printed within the signature panel after the account number.
	VISA A three digit non-embossed number on the back of the card printed within the signature panel after the account number.

 
Save to Yahoo! My Web

Submit to Fark

Add to Del.icio.us

Add to Ma.gnolia

Submit to Reddit

Submit to Slashdot

Submit to NowPublic
 

E-mail this story     Printer-friendly version     Bookmark this page