Phil's Diary: Credit Card Theft

Friday November 10, 2006

Credit Card Theft

Well, not theft of the card itself (nope, I still have that in my possession), but of the details on it. Some critter has recently managed to get hold of them, and use them to fund his gambling habit. I’ve since cancelled the card, started a fraud claim, and sat pondering how.

I’m pretty good with my credit card, it never goes near a cash machine, I keep my eyes on it all times if I have to pay for goods with it in a shop. I shred all my post with personally identifiable information on, and keep credit card statements safely at home. The details aren’t written down anywhere, nor stored on my PC. My PC has a software, and hardware firewall, and at present isn’t actually turned on very often. I’ve seen enough phishing examples to check very carefully when entering details online to make purchases.

So this leaves me with checking my credit card statements regularly, and fortunetly I do, and noticed this dodginess the day after they’d spent the money.

So the lesson I learned is it makes sense to keep your card safe, but not matter what you do, your details are probably in many grubby mits by now, so check the usage early and often.

Posted by Phil on November 10, 2006 09:50 PM | Categories: Misc | TrackBack

The moment you use a creditcard the data enter someone else's system and can be stolen from there.

Posted by: sjon at November 30, 2006 9:09 PM