April 17,2009
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An Obvious Credit Card Leak, Pt.4
What would it take to fix?Why is it that so little importance is placed on this problem? Don't we realize how serious this is? Innocent peoples' credit cards are hanging out there for the world to see and they don't even know about it. Much can happen in a short amount of time which can impact these innocent people in ways they'll never get over. All it takes to stop this is a simple replacement and they could go on with their lives unharmed. Alternately, single-use credit cards could be issued with limited charge amounts in the first place. Thus far, however, all-purpose credit cards are the default. That's what you get if you don't go to a lot of extra trouble.
Some people do take that that extra step and even go so far as to run all their credit card transactions through the more-secure services offered by companies like "PayPal". Personal sensitive credit card information isn't even shared with the merchants you buy from. But these services don't come cheap.
For the present time, however, things will just continue this way and credit card consumers will be hurt. What we need is for the credit card industry to protect us better. They need to be more proactive with their efforts to comb the Internet. Further, the offending agents who allow these leaks in the first place should be brought to bear. There need to be appropriate penalties that will curb their clumsiness. Since these "troves" are usually found in bundles, it shouldn't be all that hard to find out where they came from. This is already standard procedure when it comes to the credit card payment processors like Heartland and FirstData.
With all the technology already in place, why not put it to practical use? It wouldn't take a very large department devoted just to this cause. If fact, just a few minutes a day would be long enough to stop the bleeding (continued endangerment) while another department could run the batch through its detection algorithms to locate the leak and plug it early on. In addition, there should be a hotline where a reporter gets right through without being placed on hold for a long time. Then, the reporter should receive the treatment that the credit card issuer or association is genuinely grateful for the tip. The flat-out "No comment" just isn't useful here. Why is the simple so confounding to these people?