October 20, 2009
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News: UK Call Centers Gambles At Customers' Expense
A newly released report by Veritape, the provider of innovative and leading edge call recording software solutions, indicates most call centers have put credit card customers' personal information in a compromising situation. Results of the report called the Great Credit Card Gamble, were released Sunday at the start of the National Identity Fraud Prevention Week. According to the report, 19 of the 20 call centers represented in the report do not delete or mask customers' personal credit card information from recorded phone conversations. Industry standards require call center employees to remove this information in order to protect consumers from falling prey to fraud.
The report also indicated that call center employees have not been deleting conversations from their computers that contain sensitive credit card information including the customers' three digit codes. A surprising statistic and valid justification for outrage was that a whopping 97 percent of the call center managers that were surveyed did not follow the standard guidelines in proper management of consumers' sensitive personal and credit card information. The guidelines indicate that call centers are not to maintain recorded conversations that contain the customer's three digit codes. Furthermore, 39 percent of the call managers were not even aware that such a standard exists and 11 percent acknowledged they were aware of the guidelines, but chose to ignore them.
The report is an indication that consumers need to take extra precautions when speaking with any call center individual. The report is a blatant lack of disregard of sensitive credit card information which leaves customers at great risk for identity and card fraud as well as vulnerable to hackers' criminal activities. A spokesperson for the UK Cards Association, Mark Bowerman reminded consumers to be protective of their personal and card information and to only provide information to individuals they know and trust. Furthermore, Bowerman noted that consumers should never give information out to any unsolicited caller. Meanwhile, Veritape has undertaken a new campaign, the Silent Number, aimed at call center employees to take the necessary steps in handling callers' sensitive information.