I've never been too concerned re Credit Card fraud because as far as I'm aware, as long as I don't do anything really foolish, my CC provider (i.e. my bank) is the party who wears any losses. Sure there could be some inconvenience, but at the end of the day, no $$$ loss to me.
Does this sound correct to others, or is there something I should be concerned about?
My dad got stung by a bit of c/c fraud before. Some nut apparently got hold of his card details and charged it for a hotel stay in Sydney. Not his entire limit, but he did have a frustrating time trying to convince the bank that it was not him in Sydney.
Of course, my dad isn't great under stress. In his view, he thought the world was upside-down when he was told that the onus was his in proving that he didn't make the said transaction. Although I don't know how the bank people interacted with him, from his point of view he felt he was being vilified as the criminal, or basically the bank were treating him as if he was trying to weasel out of a "legitimate" transaction when he was really trying to report that his card had been misused and there was no physical way he could have made that transaction.
End result is that he cancelled his card and got a replacement with a lower credit limit. He's not into anything risky so I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so to speak, or someone just decided, 'Hey, here's another card number, let's use this one.' Now he barely uses his credit card for internet purchases. The only one seems to be airfares. A few times he has asked me to make purchases on his behalf using my credit card(s) (apparently my risk to fraud is more "disposable" than his).
Some guy claimed to be a Saudi prince or something. Kind of a knock off of Frank Abagnale's story. He convinced everyone of his "status" and used it to live the high life (even with his "victims") and steal identity documents (e.g. to access bank accounts, credit lines, etc.). They haven't caught him yet, or at least he's in some jurisdiction where he seems to have some protection anyway. Smartest man or dumbest victims? You decide.
There was a rather interesting documentary on ABC tonight about hacking, black hats, identity and c/c theft, etc. etc. :-|
