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Why Your Bank Doesn't Tell You Your Credit Card Has Been Stolen
from the too-much-trouble dept
It's no secret that credit granters are a big part of the problem in identity theft and credit scams. They really don't do nearly enough to stamp out the fraud. Now comes the (not at all surprising) news from the other side that when they do learn about fraud, they don't bother telling those it's likely to impact. Apparently, if a credit card company discovers that a bunch of cards are stolen, but that not all the numbers have been used, the banks only inform those whose cards were used. For all those cases where millions of card numbers are stolen, only a small percentage are actually used. The rest of us sit here thinking our card numbers haven't been stolen because the banks don't tell us so -- even if they know the numbers are out there. I seem to recall laws being put in place to guard against exactly this type of thing -- but perhaps they're not being enforced.
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Banks do notify you
I would just like to say that some banks actually do notify you when they know that your card number has been comprimised. I was contacted by my bank who had been told by Visa that an online retailer I had used had all of their CC numbers comprimised. I was sent a new card and a letter telling me about what was going on. I do happen to have my credit card with a Credit Union, but I got the impression Visa itself was pretty good about getting the word out to the banks...it could be that the banks do choose not to tell their customers, but I think Visa at least seems to be in the know.
Jonah Duckles
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Citibank virtual card numbers
Even with zero-dollar liability, replacing your card every time some database gets leaked is a real pain.
Citibank has an interesting solution, I'm not sure if other banks offer an equivalent service?
For online merchants (the worst offender when it comes to exposing CC details), Citibank offers free "Virtual Account Numbers". A unique credit card number for each transaction.
With this, you can set a dollar limit for the virtual number, and set how many months the number is valid (default is one month), great for those "special" web site memberships.
The vendor never gets your real credit card number or CVC, but you do need to use your real name and shipping address, as all of the other fraud protection checks still apply.
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