Online shopping
Much as I appreciate any attempt to improve the security of online shopping I still for the life of me can't help wonder exactly how it is that by typing in a number that albeit written in smallish print is plainly visible on the back of my credit card will somehow improve the safety of my transactions. Indeed nigh on every website points out where it is to be found so you can complete your order, is it to foil criminals that while capable of stealing my credit card might have neglected to put on their reading glasses for when they sit down at a computer to fraudulently buy products?
Am I missing something really obvious? Was I emant to take a note of that number and remember in the same fashion as a pin number and then scratch it off so no one could see? I could have sworn there was nothing like that mentioned when it was sent out.
Labels: misc
posted by Just Some Guy @ 4:25 PM
3 Comments:
I think its there to prevent when your data is stolen rather than your credit card is phsically stolen.
Think of a shop that has those old fashioned things that take an indent of the card. Any employee could look at the shops copy of that and write down the details after you'd left, but that wont show your issue number as its not indented.
Also I think when the government lose all your details they don't have issue numbers :)
Never thought of it before but if you trust your memory scratching the issue number of your card is probably a really good idea.
Fair enough, that probably counts as obvious enough. I'm sure it probably does help the security of many everyday transactions but why the nhave us type it on online ones?
Now that I think about it, you type it in online so that you are showing you haven't just purloined the card number, Though if you have purloined the card itself it no longer a protection.
Silly me, took a bit for the penny to drop. Still seems about as much protection as swimming trunks swimming in the north sea.
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