To pay or not to pay at the pump? That is the question..

[baylensman]

I find it amazing that someone can walk within a few feet of me and READ a credit card in my wallet, past all the other credit cards and id cards with mag stripes on them, But when I swipe my card at the store the reader can't pick it up with out swiping it 5 or 6 times.

 

I also have read the the ID chip on a credit card has a different number than the actually credit card just to avoid counterfeiting issues, in other words if you "read" the chip and try and enter the information online it comes back invalid, you'd actually need a new contact chip and it would have to reprogrammed and used in a machine. Not beyond the realm of most thieves but still.

 

I read an article recently where the IRIS scanners are easy to hack also now as the algorithm used to turn an iris into a code is so simple that you only like 7 points of data to FOOL the scanner.

 

If the thieves used the brain power and effort on a legit enterprise instead of trying to scam they 'd all probably be rich!

[SilvrT]

Is it true though that chip & pin isn't widespread in the US?

 

We recently returned from a 9 month trip across Canada and the USA. 6 months of that was south of the border. What really frustrates me is many of the gas stations would not accept my CC card at the pump. I'd either have to go inside and have it authorized or use my debit card ... which would work at the pump. I preferred to use the CC as it gives me cash back at most places.

[Freebird]

Is that because it was a Canadian card? I ask because I have travelled all across the USA for many years and have no problem using my debit cards at the pump.

[SilveradoCA]

We recently returned from a 9 month trip across Canada and the USA. 6 months of that was south of the border. What really frustrates me is many of the gas stations would not accept my CC card at the pump. I'd either have to go inside and have it authorized or use my debit card ... which would work at the pump. I preferred to use the CC as it gives me cash back at most places.

 

I've heard of some station pumps requiring a Zip code be entered in order to process the transaction.

 

Apparently (I haven't confirmed this, but lots of Canadians on the ADV Rider forum swear by it,) if you enter the three numbers from your canuck postal code, followed by 00, it will work. So for T9K 0N3 I would enter 90300.

[SilvrT]

I've heard of some station pumps requiring a Zip code be entered in order to process the transaction.

 

Apparently (I haven't confirmed this, but lots of Canadians on the ADV Rider forum swear by it,) if you enter the three numbers from your canuck postal code, followed by 00, it will work. So for T9K 0N3 I would enter 90300.

 

Correct, most require a zip code. Wish I'd known about that "trick" 6 months ago LOL ... I remember one campground we stayed at I entered 12345 as the zip code and it worked ... that was the only time.

[American]

Another way they steal you card information is when you are in line to pay at a store and you take out your card, most people think nothing of it and think no one can see it but the person behind you in line takes out their cell phone and acts like they are trying to read something on it and they are lifting the phone up high and to the side and all kinds of angles. What they are doing is taking as many photos of your card as they can so they can look at the photos to get your card number, expiration date, your name and the security code on the back of the card.

 

My wife got hit that way in a Publix a few years back we filed a police report and I will be damned if the local police department did not sit there and call my wife a liar and try to insinuate that she made the bogus charges. Now understand that I was stationed in Miami at the time and it was a Miami Publix this happened at, my wife was living in Cape Coral in our home on the west coast of Florida. The Lee County Sheriffs department really did not want to do their job, I was with the Florida Highway Patrol at the time. Talk about pissed off I called them up and gave them a piece of my mind.

 

Then when I transferred back to the west coast I was assigned to Naples and was a supervisor on Alligator Alley, so I was dealing with both the west coast and the east coast, one afternoon on the 3pm to 11pm shift I stopped in at an Outback steak house and ate dinner in Broward County on the east coast side (Ft. Lauderdale) I used my credit card. Well next thing you know I see a charge to Newegg .com so I contact Newegg and let them know it was a fraudulent charge, I contacted my credit card company and let them know, both Newegg and the credit card company asked me to file a police report so I went down to the Cape Coral police department and boy what a frigging run-a-round, they just like the local Lee Country sheriff did not want anything to do with the case and spit out 100 reasons why they can't do anything about it.

 

I would be embarrassed to tell anyone that as a police officer myself at the time.

 

In both cases the card companies made everything right but it pissed me off that Newegg refused to say who and where they sent the order they received to. All I could find out was that it was shipped to Ft. Lauderdale but they would not give up the address.

 

I know it was the waiter in the Outback steak house that skimmed or used my credit card himself, I gave all that information to the police of where the card had last been used by me at and it was like a month or more since I had used that card so the Outback charge would have been the only correct charge on that card besides the fraudulent charge to Newegg.

 

Our police departments are not as helpful as people think and that is coming from a retired police officer who put in 25 years on the job.