Sunday, April 02, 2006
Will you find out if someone steals your credit card number?
via the fascinating Emergent Chaos blog:
27 states do not require merchants to let you know if they store your credit card number and someone steals it.
Are you covered in the 23 that do require notification? No, because careless merchants can weasel out of disclosure by saying it would interefere with the police investigation.
There's a company for everything, and there's a company (CardCorps) that tracks data thefts. Dan Clements, their CEO, says
About all you can do is to use a credit card instead of a debit card, check your account regularly for suspicious charges, and write to your Congressman about the pending Federal legislation that would roll back state disclosure laws.
|
27 states do not require merchants to let you know if they store your credit card number and someone steals it.
Are you covered in the 23 that do require notification? No, because careless merchants can weasel out of disclosure by saying it would interefere with the police investigation.
There's a company for everything, and there's a company (CardCorps) that tracks data thefts. Dan Clements, their CEO, says
"Only about 10 percent of the merchants do the right thing and notify customers when there is a compromise ... Most want to sweep the hack under the rug. Their motivation is clear; they don't want to lose their customers' trust."
About all you can do is to use a credit card instead of a debit card, check your account regularly for suspicious charges, and write to your Congressman about the pending Federal legislation that would roll back state disclosure laws.
# posted by Frederick @ 1:00 AM Email to a friend:
Haloscan: they provide trackback