ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Identity theft

I was reading today about a scam that has been taking place at retail stores. A person using a credit card, or worse yet, inputing their PIN number into the machine at the cash register, gets filmed by a cell phone camera.

Scary stuff. I couldn't tell you how many times I've put my PIN number into one of those, and to think that a person using a cell phone could be recording every move, including credit card number, name, expiration date and PIN is pretty scary.

Be careful

I can't think of one legitimate use for a cell phone camera. The resolution isn't there for anything serious. Perverts use them to look up womens skirts and take pictures in locker rooms and bathrooms to post on the web. For kids they are just another "must have" toy. Now this problem with identity theft. They ought to be banned!!

There's also the one where an employee is able to swipe your card twice--once in the real machine, and once in a hidden card reader. The reader is kept in an apron, below the counter, etc. It only takes a second and a little distraction for a second swipe. The data are retreived from the card reader later on. A few (weeks, months, etc.) later, charges appear and there isn't much of a way to trace where it all started...

hbiss:

I used to think the same until this happened, not far from where I live, this summer:

Police: Teen abduction foiled by cell phone cam

I heard that you should never use your bank card as a debit card for a retail purchase.

You should always use it as a credit card because when you do, you get all of the protection that the credit card company offers. Sometimes this even includes extended warranties.

My wife had her "Identity" stolen recently. It is unbeleivable what people can do with a little info. It sucks.

...I used to think the same until this happened

Yeah, I remember that. That's the ONLY time I've ever heard of these things actually being useful. Besides, if that guy knew the kid was taking pictures (which he would have realized if phone cams had been around longer) that kid probably would have been a statistic. Sounds like the kid was real lucky to begin with and it could have backfired. Smartest thing to do is just get the hell out of there as fast as you can while you can.