Up To 1.5 Million Visa, MasterCard Credit Card Numbers Stolen

An anonymous reader writes "Global Payments, the U.S.-based credit card processor company that experienced a security breach affecting Visa and MasterCard, confirmed that the breached portion of its processing system was confined to North America. The company also finally revealed how many credit card numbers were stolen: around 1,500,000."

Comments

Recourse?

[mws1066]

And what recourse do card holders have? How do we know if our number was stolen, passed around, and now someone is just holding onto it indefinitely and might leap to use it after this whole thing blows over? A bit frightening.

Re:Recourse?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that Global Payments should be forced to contact all people who had their information stolen AND re-imburse them for any damages

Your recourse is through your bank and/or card issuer, not the processor, and that fact is greatly beneficial to you. A massive breach could easily put a company out of business, especially if that company were already in trouble. In that situation, if they were liable for your losses, you would have to wait years for bankruptcy court to sort it out, and you would likely only get back a portion of your losses. The bank that issued your card is legally required to have the cash on hand to be able to pay you back, so it works out much better for you that it is their obligation. Yes, you may have to fill out a few forms, and your money will not come back instantaneously, but I don't think there's a constitutional amendment requiring that you never be mildly inconvenienced, so suck it up and take it. Shit happens.

Re:Recourse?

[whoever57]

Which is why you're supposed to tell your travel schedule to your credit card companies. Lazy or a troll?

Recent experience: My wife went to the UK (we live in the USA) recently. I phoned the credit card company in advance and told them she would be in the UK. Cards on the account have been used in the UK on a fairly regular basis. Her card was suspended within a couple of days of her arrival. So, what's the point of calling the credit card company?

Re:Recourse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether it is used now or later, you are not liable. Your recourse is that you are NEVER liable for credit card transactions.

Bwahahaha! You've never had to experience the nightmare of having fraudulent transactions on your c/card, have you? The issuers make you jump through a ridiculous number of hoops, legal papers, police statements, that unless you have large sums against you, you simply give up trying to to remove them.

It's a complete myth you can reverse transaction on credit cards, perpetuated by Visa and Co to keep the public in happy blindness. At least until they experience the problems for themselves.

Re:Recourse?

[rmandevi]

That would have to be a pretty cagey crook. The breach occurred January-February. Global reported the breach to Visa, MasterCard, and Federal authorities once they detected it last month (source: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=125339&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1678656&highlight=). The news only came out Friday to give the Feds enough time to investigate without tipping anyone off. Truth in posting: I work for one of Global's competitors.

Re:Recourse?

[sexconker]

Well, yes, at least these are CREDIT cards, not bank cards. This is exactly why I don't have a bank card and only use a credit card - at least it provides a buffer to my money. If I see charges on a bill that are suspect, I don't HAVE to write the credit card company a check. But if a criminal got a hold of someone's bank card...

Maybe I'm wrong - does anyone use a bank card and feel safe?

I left Bank of America because of this (and other, previous horse shit).
Some scam "company" initiated an ACH transaction against my checking account (not even a debit purchase, it was straight ACH).

They farm account numbers from dumpsters, internets, and call center slaves who are easy to bribe. Then they initiate fraudulent transactions for "supplemental medical insurance". You can go to their various shell websites and quickly see that the insurance is of course non-existent. The only service they offer is theft.

So I called Bank of America and said "This is bullshit." and they wanted to do the whole 7-10 day, affidavit, wait to get my money back, horseshit.
I got my money back faster (from the company) by threatening to sue and reporting them to the NY State Attorney's office.

Bank of America said they could not (would not) block future transactions from that company. Sure, they could block debits from that company for the same amount (down to the cent), so if they try to take $49.95 they can't get it, but if they try $49.96 or $4999.95 they get it instantly. BoA wouldn't even let me file a complaint against them. Since I had gotten my money back, they refused to let me file a claim where I did not seek a refund. Of course, why would the bank want to make my money secure or investigate fraud? They profit off transactions, interest, fees, fraudulent charges, etc.

My only option, according to BoA, was to open a new checking account to get a new number that hopefully they wouldn't be able to steal.
So I did. Except the new checking account wasn't at BoA.

Can't steal a number

[Thanshin]

You can't steal a number! It's not stealing if you still have your copy of the number! It's copyright infringement at the most.

Also, if put them one after the other, they stole a single number!

73

There you are, you can keep that number in exchange. I never liked 73 anyway.

You're welcome.

How many?

[rickb928]

Krebs on Security stated the number was 10 million. GP and all initially admitted to 50,000.

I'm betting on Krebs. He's pretty reliable, or at least his sources are.