As online shopping increases in popularity, concerns about credit card security have increased as well. But despite vigilant online security measures, shoppers beware: Credit card thieves will go to great lengths to track down card numbers.
For credit card thieves, stealing mail, combing through dumpsters for discarded credit cards and trading card numbers in Internet chat rooms are ways of the past. These days, wily thieves find ways to access online company database software that stores customers' credit card numbers and private profiles. If security is not tight enough, hackers can obtain this information.
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This January, CDUniverse.com, an online CD store, came under attack for its poor online security measures. A hacker broke into the company's database and threatened to post 300,000 customers' credit card numbers if CD Universe refused to pay a ransom.
This is something companies tend to overlook. They build large-scale Web sites to serve customers but fail to allot money to improve security for information transactions, thus putting customers' privacy at risk.
"All companies should encrypt all customer information." Asst. Commerce Prof. Rick Grenci said.
Some dishonest store clerks also may be involved in the fraud game - this time, offline. These clerks will purchase magnetic strip readers that are modified to store the cardholder's information. The dishonest cashier swipes the card twice, once on the regular machine and once on the specialized one, according to a February article in U.S. News & World Report.
The same article reported that even amateur traders dabble in the illegal trade. They use computer software that manipulates real credit card numbers by a couple of digits to generate fake credit card numbers.
With such software, thieves can produce 999 numbers from one card, the article said. The Federal Trade Commission has charged several companies and individuals with illegally billing 783,947 credit and debit cards for Internet services.
As more and more credit cards are issued, fraud cases increase. Three months ago, an avid online shopper in Richmond received statements from her Visa and Discover Card that she had to pay off a huge overdraft. Upon checking her previous statements, she spotted two withdrawals from unsolicited payments. Someone had used her card.
"I really was confused at first, because I always check out the store's reliability before placing my order online," she said, speaking under the condition of anonymity.
In fact, she did check, but something wrong appeared. "When I clicked 'OK' to send my card number to the store's secure server, an error page popped up and requested that I click 'OK' again," she recalled.
At the time she didn't realize the extraneous Web page error message was probably a guise for stealing her credit card information, she said.
Company officials investigated and removed that add-in Web page. Since her number was exposed, she had no other choice but to deactivate the card. "I've got to be careful. Next time I'll use only one card with a lower credit line for shopping. It's not completely safe, but that minimizes the risk," she said.
Knowing the risks doesn't stop too many online shoppers, however.
"Fraud doesn't matter much if a site has a hacker-proof server," said first-year Engineering student Ricky Li, who sometimes goes online to buy books.
Normally, most sites dedicated to shopping are given certificates from Verisign, the leading provider of Internet trust services, to conduct trusted and secure electronic commerce and communications. So customers might want to check out the site to see if their preferred shopping site has a certificate. Another way to do this is to go to Bizrate.com, which rates shopping sites in categories such as customer satisfaction and secure shopping.
"I've heard enough of mishaps, but when it comes to remote buyers, online shopping is a plus," Li said.
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