Time for me to run to target: at least 70 minutes round trip.
Times amazon has leaked my credit cards, last 5 years: 0. Times other sites have idioted their way into a giant hassle for me, last 5 years: 8. Time spent arguing with the morons at my gym because I forgot to update my stolen credit card and they wanted to fine me $30: almost 40 minutes. Amount I resent having to deal with all of the above: a lot.
I love Amazon … but the quality issues lately have been somewhat problematic.
Yes, yes, in America, our credit cards now have chips, too... but they also have the old magstripe, and everyone buys things from the internet anyhow, so we're giving that number out to everyone.
The other side of this is that the laws in the US are heavily in the customer's favor. It's a pain in the ass, you have to complain about the charges, but it's very rare that we are actually responsible for any of the charges. (The merchant who accepted the stolen credit card is left holding that particular bag.)
Because of this? Personally, I don't worry too much about it. I figure any one of my cards might be out of commission at any point of time, and periodically I'll just call my credit card company and tell them to give me a new credit card number, just so I have a fresh one that isn't floating around all the darknet sites. I figure a credit card being compromised every five years or so is 'normal'
But... it sounds like I'm wrong.
Just the other day, I read about how someone managed to pick up over a thousand dollars in overdraft fees when he was struggling to make ends meet and now he never had that problem because he has access to credit cards (that he can afford to pay off in full every month so it doesn't cost him much extra).
This, but not for the reasons you think. In America, it is stupidly easy to get credit in general, and credit cards have high limits. Europe is much, much more conservative in that regard.
We can get a new one for free in a few days, we have many spare lines of credit, and we will not be responsible for any fraudulent charges
Also, Americans are richer and have bigger credit lines so the cards are worth more on the black market.
However, the thief? once they get that credit card? they use it with a merchant to buy a thing.
For example, last time my card was stolen, I saw a charge for some expensive jewelry from a Florida jeweler on my account. I called my credit card company and they refunded the money to my account... so who is left holding the bag? that jewler in Florda.
When I had a merchant account (selling VPSs) I had a few customers like that; the credit card company simply takes the money back, and it's up to you, the merchant, to try to get back what you just sold to the customer... something that is usually impossible.
Oh, nm, you meant that businesses that unknowingly accept stolen cards get screwed. They certainly do.
But imagine a business had to write a $50 check to each and every cardholder whose card they leaked. I bet there would be a miracle, and systems would become securable.
The best way to solve the problem, I think, is to quit using shared secrets across minimally trusted parties. Public key cryptography is... I'm not going to say unbreakable, but it's pretty good. it's fairly secure. We need to enforce that on all physical card readers, which will make 'skimming' rather a lot more difficult, and then after that we need to figure out a card reader users can use on their computers and cellphones.
The technology is mostly there; most of my cellphones support some kind of secure wireless public key stuff, and most of my phones do too. We need to make this ecosystem work well, solve the software problems, and then make it so that your credit card number is just an identifier, not an authentication token.