It’s every consumer’s nightmare.
You go to a restaurant, and after a great meal and
good conversation, you hand your credit card to the
waitress who disappears with it for a short time.
You assume that she is merely swiping your card for
the amount stated on the bill that she brought you,
but in actuality, she is secretly running
your card through a skimmer—a small
machine that will “steal” all of the personal
information from the magnetic strip located on the
back of your card. A short while later, she hands
the credit card back to you, along with a receipt
for your signature. You leave the restaurant not realizing
that you’ve just become another victim to one
of the fastest growing credit card scams around, commonly
known as “skimming.”
It’s not long before the fraudulent
charges begin to pile up on your credit card account.
Wouldn’t it be great if the credit card issuers
could somehow track and predict the businesses that
were more likely to commit these frauds? Thanks to
TransUnion, one of the world’s leading information
solutions companies, they now can.
Announced yesterday, the Common Point of
Purchase (CPP) solution will help combat
this growing trend. Here’s how it works. The
data from all known credit cards that have been skimmed
is pooled into one database, and then analyzed. In
the past, this was done manually, and resulted in
delayed reaction times and fragmented results. Once
a merchant has been identified as one that is the
source of multiple skimmed cards, the credit card
issuer is immediately notified and an investigation
is opened.
CPP was introduced in Canada five years ago, and
since then, Canadian authorities claim that their
credit card fraudulent losses have been significantly
reduced.
While it’s true that the credit card companies
take the bulk of the losses because of consumer protection
against fraudulent charges, consumers do end up footing
much of the fraud “bill” with higher charges
and interest rates.
This anti-fraud solution will go a long way in combating
the problem, but there is one step that consumers
can take to protect themselves as well. Whenever paying
with a credit card, make it a habit to not let the
card out of your site. Some retailers have began to
put their “pay stations” in plain view
of the customers, but if you visit one that doesn’t,
simply “follow” your credit card and watch
the transaction yourself. It may be awkward, but it’s
a great way to insure that you don’t become
a victim of skimming.
For more information, go directly to TransUnion’s
web site: http://www.transunion.com/
