Poll: Have you had your credit or debit card info stolen?
Reading through the comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7847047 (the recent Krebs carding story) I was surprised at how many people mentioned not only having their details stolen but having it done quite recently. I would expect that users of HN are at least slightly more secure on average with their sensitive information (like credit card info) than the average person. I thought it might be interesting to see what the prevalence is among readers here.<p>Poll: Have you had your credit or debit card info stolen?
- 1 point
Yes, frequently
- 3 points
Yes, several times
- 5 points
Yes, once or twice
- 0 points
No, but many people I know have
- 4 points
No, but a few people I know have
- 2 points
No, and I don't know anyone who has
- 0 points
Other (explain below?)
Comments
I myself have had both credit and debit card info stolen several times over the past few years. It might be happening to me twice a year now.
One card (debit) I remember distinctly because I only had it for a few months, had only used it a few times, and only in two physical locations. I had recently been to a gas pump that had seen better days, so I chalked it up to that. I went and informed the owner, and after he understood that I wasn't trying to accuse him of anything he became fairly interested.
Recently I had fraud charges on a credit card that I stopped using 6 months prior.
I know it's happened to me at least four times now. Only once did the credit card company alert me - the rest I found on my own.
Does anyone else find this happening to them a lot or is it just me?
My bank robocalls me every couple months to say they've deactivated a card due to suspicious activity. These are invariably false positives -- my own transactions, usually under $50, at merchants close to my home, where I've shopped regularly for years.
Then there are actual fraudulent transactions, usually over $500, far from my home, where I've never shopped. The bank's fraud detection systems can't seem to detect this obvious abuse, so I check my statements online every couple weeks to catch it myself.