Be sure to read Scene 3. Quite interesting.
This is a new one. People sure stay busy
Trying to cheat us, don't they?

SCENE 1.

A friend went to the local gym and placed his belongings in the locker. After the workout and a shower, he came out, saw the locker open, and thought to himself, 'Funny, I thought I locked the locker...
Hmm, 'He dressed and just flipped the wallet to make sure all was in order.
Everything looked okay - all cards were in place...

A few weeks later his credit card bill came - a whooping bill of $14,000!
He called the credit card company and started yelling at them, saying that he did not make the transactions.
Customer care personnel verified that there was no mistake in the system and asked if his card had been stolen...
'No,' he said, but then took out his wallet, pulled out the credit card, and yep -you guessed it - a switch had been made.
An expired similar credit card from the same bank was in the wallet.
The thief broke into his locker at the gym and switched cards.

Verdict: The credit card issuer said since he did not report the card missing earlier,he would have to pay the amount owed to them.
How much did he have to pay for items he did not buy?
$9,000! Why were there no calls made to verify the amount swiped?
Small amounts rarely trigger a 'warning bell' with some credit card companies.
It just so happens that all the small amounts added up to big one!
============================
SCENE 2.
A man at a local restaurant paid for his meal with his credit card.
The bill for the meal came, he signed it and the waitress folded the receipt and passed the credit card along.
Usually, he would just take it and place it in his wallet or pocket. Funny enough, though, he actually took a look at the card and, lo and behold, it was the expired card of another person.
He called the waitress and she looked perplexed.
She took it back, apologized, and hurried back to the counter under the watchful eye of the man.
All the waitress did while walking to the counter was wave the wrong expired card to the counter cashier, and the counter cashier immediately looked down and took out the real card.
No exchange of words --- nothing! She took it and came back to the man with an apology..

Verdict: Make sure the credit cards in your wallet are yours.
Check the name on the card every time you sign for something and/or the card is taken away for even a short period of time.
Many people just take back the credit card without even looking at it, 'assuming it has to be theirs.
FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, DEVELOP THE HABIT OF CHECKING YOUR CREDIT CARD EACH TIME IT IS RETURNED TO YOU AFTER A TRANSACTION!
==========================
SCENE 3:
Yesterday I went into a pizza restaurant to pick up an order that I had called in.
I paid by using my Visa Check Card which, of course, is linked directly to my checking Account.
The young man behind the counter took my card, swiped it, then laid it on the counter as he waited for the approval, which is pretty standard procedure.
While he waited, he picked up his cell phone and started dialling..
I noticed the phone because it is the same model I have, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Then I heard a click that sounded like my phone sounds when I take a picture.
He then gave me back my card but kept the phone in his hand as if he was still pressing buttons.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking: I wonder what he is taking a picture of, oblivious to what was really going on.
It then dawned on me: the only thing there was my credit card, so now I'm paying close attention to what he is doing..
He set his phone on the counter, leaving it open.
About five seconds later, I heard the chime that tells you that the picture has been saved.
Now I'm standing there struggling with the fact that this boy just took a picture of my credit card.
Yes, he played it off well, because had we not had the same kind of phone, I probably would never have known what happened.
Needless to say, I immediately cancelled that card as I was walking out of the pizza parlour.
All I am saying is, be aware of your surroundings at all times.
Whenever you are using your credit card take caution and don't be careless.

Notice who is standing near you and what they are doing when you use your card.

Be aware of phones, because many have a camera phone these days.

LET'S GET THE WORD OUT! JUST BE AWARE

Never let your card out of your sight.....check and check again!

Scary isn't it.....

thanks for the warnings, am never letting mine out of my sight again (and will watching people more closesly).

Urban myths.

Thanks for posting Tubbs

even if it is, you can never be too careful these days.

Agree!!

Worst one was card receipts from ATMs, peeps used to use those, didn't even need a card back then.

oh i always take mine and put it through the shredder when i get home...has always scared me that you can see some of your cards numbers on them.

It's surprising someone took the time to actually type this up.

I'll put their name down for the captain obvious award.

Urban myths or not.If it saves one person from being ripped off it will have been worthwhile posting

Number one certainly isn't an urban myth, someone I worked with had one of his cards nicked from his wallet when it was in his jacket on the back of a chair at a meeting in a hotel.

They left his wallet and jsut took one card so it was only when he needed to use that particualr card that he found out and they'd already spent loads of cash on the net on stuff.

The other one that's definitely true as it happened to my sister in laws family was someone cloned his card and ordered a load of DJ equipment. on the delivery day he asked the delivery driver to call his mobile (the thief that is) when he was nearly there to make sure he was in. THe thief then "happened" to meet the delivery driver at the end of the drive and signed for the goods without them ever making it into the house. When the driver had gone, he just put the stuff into his own van and disapeared. It was only cos a neighbout saw it and called the Police that anyone knew anything about it.

The moral to all these stories (if they were in UK) is NOT to have a debit card in your wallet unless you need it. With credit cards you are much better covered because of the consumer credit act. There are scams out there - but if you don't receive the goods, you can claim a refund from the credit card company.

The first one is definitely not an urban myth. It happened to 2 of my work colleagues in a gym in chester.

Luckily they noticed early.

methinks security needs to be updated at that gym in chester

A good friend of mine had his card copied whilst in a restaurant in Amsterdam. The mistake I assume he made was to let the waiter walk away with the card, thus taking it out of my friends sight.

Moral of the story follow your card and never let it out of your sight! Do not worry about being polite either as regards this issue.

The mass introduction of this type of card will make that even harder.

RFID's ability to be read from a distance, no matter how short, must be very tempting to those with the knowledge and the technology.

So what your saying is that we can all get stung without even knowing It? Very worrying!

They used guest memberships to get in.

surprisingly they started sell ing better padlocks. Yes... Selling!

When my card was "done" in Shanghai it never left my sight. I made sure of that. I presume the card reader machine had been "fixed" to copy details.

Snod

The RFID cards will be the next big scam, you just force the card to send you data (and you can carry the equipment to do that in your bag or your pocket) then just walk down the street past as many people as possible, anyone with this type of card will ping it's details and now you have them, straight out of your pocket or handbag without ever losing your card.

These details can't be used over the phone and generally they are for low value (under £15 - £20) transaction, but a few of them a day soon adds up, and if you can get them so easily why use the same card twice, no one would notice one extra rogue transaction, and even if they did there would be nothing to link it to the other cards that would be used other than you both happened to be walking down the same street at the same time.

I'm a bit fussy over cards, I don't have a credit card, and most of my debit cards are prepay, I keep small amounts on them for when I'm out shopping and just transfer any larger amount I need via internet banking just before I pay for it. it may seem a bit of hassle but I use my cards on the net all day long, and copying them is no use to anyone because the balances tend only to have credit on them for very short period, and the chances of being used in that time are slim.

Have to agree though, don't let your card out of your sight, watch where it is swiped (if they swipe it through two readers saying one is for "security" you need to check) and if you're using it somewhere new or you're suspicious of get a prepaid one.

Or pay cash

Presumably the RFID cards work on the normal security practice of responding with a code depending upon a given key. Its response will be no good for another billion or so transactions.

Car alarms work this way as do most security devices that could be scanned.

I've had an RFID card for a while but never ventured to using it as yet.

Sort of, but not quite, the actual cards aren't true RFID as we understand them, but actually have a rewriteable area of their chip to store data useage.

The RFID chips in normal security applications are a fixed data stream with a triggered response and are read only, however the banks realised that many people wouldn't understand the difference or would be more reluctant to use the card if they thought it was storing data about their small transactions (which of course it does).

The industry is in a bit of a mess with these at the moment, they haven't yet fixed an industry standard for the range, most work on 10cm (ISO/IEC 14443) but many want 50cm (ISO/IEC 15693) however they do accept that this would make data hacking easier as the cryptographic algorithm is vulnerable on these devices (obviously I wont go into how to do it on an open forum, but it is possible) and I also believe that "chip swaps" will become a new problem if people have unrestricted access to your card for a few minutes, and that no one will notice the swap for a while as they'll just think that the card has "failed" (failure rates on these cards are quite high, think about being in your wallet and what you do to it, microcomputers, and that's what they are, aren't meant to be abused like that).

I do think that they are a good idea, but I also think that they've just opened up a whole new way to be ripped off.

Oh yes, and your RFID, if you've never used it, how do you know the chip is still there, it's about half the size of a grain of sand so you'd hardly miss it and just waving it over the machine is enough to get a Big Mac meal charged to it (if this does happen, it's not me).

Turns out I've got two RFID cards, I've had one for 2 years and the other for just less than a year. Both cards have cracked, I just guessed the RFID bit was built into the usual chip, not separate, that still works on both.

Going to look it up now

When RFID passports first came out didn't the guys at defcon build a simple scanner and drive around scanning people as a proof of concept? Then a few years later they were cloning RFID travel cards?

RFID has a long way to go before it's secure I think =/ There's numerous stories about how easy they are to reverse engineer and tamper with.

Well be warned now some types of padlock especially those used on personal lockers are MASTERKEYED so take your own.