Protect Your Money From Debit/Credit Card Fraud By Allan Clapp

What we will cover . . . Who commits data breaches. Are you at risk? How Debit / Credit Cards are processed. Where Data Breaches happen. How to monitor your Debit/Credit cards. What to do if your debit card is misused. How your bank may respond. What to do if your credits is misused. How your Credit Card company may respond.

Who commits Data Breaches? Individual Hackers “Underground” Hacker Groups Foreign G0vernment Sponsored Hacker Groups

Are you at risk? You are at risk if you: Place On-Line for Orders or Paying Bills. Use Debit / Credit Cards for Gas or Retail purchases. Have children that have access to your IDs and Cards.

How Debit/Credit cards are processed You swipe your card in a retail store. The information passes through an encrypted connection over the “Open” Internet. A computer at the company’s headquarters forwards your information onto a card processing bureau. The bureau passes the information on to your information onto your financial intuition. The answer is returned through the reverse path!

Where Data Breaches Happen . . . Gas Station Pumps and ATM’s. The Headquarters Server Computer. The Credit / Debit Bureau’s Server Computer. Your Bank’s / Credit Union’s Server Computer. Any place your information is NOT encrypted.

How to Monitor Debit Credit cards. Keep your receipts. For Credit Cards: Compare your receipts to your statement each month. For your Debit Cards: Compare your receipts to your “Home Banking” system on a regular basis. Contact the intuition immediately if you find a discrepancy.

What to do about a Debit Card . . . Contact the intuition (in person) about the breach. File a Police Report (if asked to do so). Wait for the intuition to recover your money!

Your Institutions' Response . . . Each intuition handles this issue differently. First and foremost they will not “Permanently” return your money to you until they have recovered it for themselves. Some intuitions will issue a “temporary” reimbursement in lieu of recovering the money. If they decide that no fraud took place they will retrieve this “temporary” payment from your account.

What to do about a Credit Card . . . Contact the intuition (usually by phone) about the breach. File a Police Report (if asked to do so). Wait for the intuition to issue you a credit for the transaction(s).

Credit Card Company’s Response . . . Credit Card Companies have much deeper pockets. Depending on the institutions policies a credit could be issued to your account in a little as 24 hours. In the event they decide the claim is false they can just as easily add the transaction back onto your account!

You are the single best defense! Financial intuitions make a good faith effort to protect you. However they can not tell if: You are traveling. If a retail store purchase is legitimate. If an online transaction is legitimate. If your card was lost / stolen. The bottom line is you have to protect yourself!

Thank you Lecture notes are available at: booksbyallan.com/Classes.php