Thursday, May 25, 2006
Every little helps...Even if it means accepting stolen credit cards.
Not content with taking 1 in 8 pounds spent by Britain's shoppers, it seems that grocery giant Tesco are quite happy to accept stolen credit cards without a PIN number - namely my stolen credit card.
Basically, last week I logged on to my online banking to check my finances. Much to my surprise, my credit card, which I haven't used for about 2 months, had a deduction of about £1.85. I opened it, expecting to see some sort of back-dated interest charge, only to find that the charge had gone through the day before in my local branch of Tesco.
I HAVE NEVER USED MY CREDIT CARD IN TESCO
Then I remembered an incident the week before. I had just bought a few odds and sods and split a twenty pound note. As I placed the change back into my wallet, I had a sudden case of the clumsies, and fumbled my wallet, spewing cards, stamps and out-of-date "Computer's for Schools" vouchers far and wide. I picked everything up, stuffed it in my button-up coat pocket and left.
Well, it seems that I picked up almost everything. Some other cunt picked up my credit card. And then decided to use it.
Naturally, I got the card cancelled immediately and called the Fraud hot-line. It seems that I was extremely lucky. The thief was probably testing that the card worked, figuring that £1.85 wouldn't be noticed. If they had got my debit card, I might not have, but the usual balance on my credit card is zero. I'm just glad that they didn't hit me with a £3K spending spree.
However, I am extremely pissed. Not least, because Tesco accepted the card without my PIN number.
So I would just like to ask
"WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF CHIP AND PIN IF YOU LET PEOPLE SIGN FOR IT INSTEAD?"
It is not widely publicised, but when the law changed on Valentine's day, requiring you to use a PIN, stores can still get you to sign the old-fashioned way instead. All that has changed, is that the store now bears the cost of fraudulent transactions rather than the card company unless the PIN is used. I believe that in this case Tesco would rather gamble that 99% of forgotten PINs are just that, and simply cover the costs of the 1% that are fraudulent - thus not risking the loss of sales from irate customers who get to the checkout and can't buy their groceries.
So, as soon as I get my fraud report, I shall be taking it to the store manager and asking him the above question.
# posted by SaneScientist @ 4:59 am
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