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Saturday, July 4, 2009

Behaviours Leading to Credit Card Fraud (Combating Credit Card Fraud: Part 1 of 4)

Majority of Credit Card Transaction Frauds in India happen due to one of the four scenarios mentioned below

(1) Careless with your Credit Card at the Petrol Pump or Restaurant ….. someone noted down your 16 digit Credit Card Number, Credit Card Expiry Date and 3 digit CVV Number appearing on the reverse of your Card. This data is enough for an Internet Transaction
(2) You have lost your Card. Your wallet got flicked or you missed taking it back from the waiter at the restaurant. In some cases I have seen people leave it in the ATM itself after withdrawing cash
(3) You frequently book tickets at call centers like www.yatra.com or similar vendors who ask for your CVV numbers over the phone (I beg you to bear in mind that … the CVV number is not to be shared with anyone and you are better off scratching it off from the reverse of your Credit Card and writing it down somewhere else or storing it in your Mobile Phone against some unsuspicious name. I do that J
(4) You traveled abroad (especially countries like Malaysia or Thailand), visited night clubs or some shady joints where your Credit Card Magnetic Strip details were intercepted and the well networked fraudsters generated a duplicate card and used the same

If you are experiencing Scenario (2) do note that you are a forgetful person and please ensure that you do not use Credit Cards the rest of your life ….. or a more practical suggestion would be to reduce the Credit Card Limit to an amount which you can afford to lose. If you set your Credit Card limit to Rs.20,000 you can lose a maximum of Rs.20,000 if you lose your Card
If you are experiencing Scenario (3), please be aware and make everyone around you aware that the 3 digit CVV number is not to be shared with anyone. You may punch it on the phone to authenticate the transaction, but please do not voice it out. You are digging your own grave by doing so.

I cannot blame you if you faced Scenario (1) and Scenario (4). But there are ways in which you can prevent the same. Do read on in the next article of this series.

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