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Credit Card Breach At P.F. Chang's
schwit1 tips a post by Brian Krebs saying that P.F. Chang's China Bistro, a nationwide restaurant chain, is the latest victim of a massive data breach. The company is currently investigating. Krebs writes:
On June 9, thousands of newly-stolen credit and debit cards went up for sale on rescator[dot]so, an underground store best known for selling tens of millions of cards stolen in the Target breach. Several banks contacted by KrebsOnSecurity said they acquired from this new batch multiple cards that were previously issued to customers, and found that all had been used at P.F. Chang's locations between the beginning of March 2014 and May 19, 2014. ... The items for sale are not cards, per se, but instead data copied from the magnetic stripe on the backs of credit cards. Armed with this information, thieves can re-encode the data onto new plastic and then use the counterfeit cards to buy high-priced items at big box stores, goods that can be quickly resold for cash (think iPads and gift cards, for example).
If it's stripe data, that implies the POS readers were compromised, just like Target. Interesting.
I use credit cards for 99% of my purchases. That way I avoid the issue of dealing with change and refilling on cash. I've never been held responsible for a fraudulent charge.
I use cash or checks for 99% of my purchases. That way I avoid this issue. I'm also an old guy so "Get off my lawn!"
Is it a real issue or a theoretical issue? I've seen a few fraudulent charges over the years, and the bank has never given me any greif over any of them.
Your solution of carrying cash exposes you to higher risk of direct loss or theft. And you lose the card rewards program.
As for cheques -- yeah, whatever, because those aren't stupidly easy to forge; and most people won't even take them anymore.
On the upside you have a smallish boost in privacy relating to your purchases. (locations, times, and amount spent)
Seems you've traded one set of small risks for another. Not sure that amounts to a real overall improvement though.