When is your privacy more imporant?
As I've mentioned, we've been in the process of a move, and now that we're in the new place and getting settled, there's the issue of mail. Everyone knows what a pain it can be when your mail goes to your old address... so we've done the standard, contact companies and apply for a 6 month address change with the post office. However that still missed a few days immediately after the move (essentially this week) so the fiance was checking the mail at the old place each day on her own. She received an interesting letter a few days ago...
It was a letter from her bank, stating that she had recently used her card at a business suspected of copying debit cards and PINs. As a result they had lowered her daily maximum limits and were monitoring her account. This is impressive, since her and I use our debit cards interchangeably and anywhere she's used her debit card, I've most likely used mine... yet I haven't received any such letter from my bank. This is where her banks courtesy stopped though.
Yesterday she went into pick up her new bank card and set it up... She also had to change her address since we had *JUST* moved... the process took her about 30 minutes (not bad all things considered). During the 30 minutes she asked which business she'd used her debit card at that was suspected of card copying. The bank refused to tell her because the company was under investigation. Now I can see two reasons for them doing this:
- They value the privacy of the company more than they do the privacy of my fiance.
- They don't want to ruin the investigation.
Now #2 would require that the criminals have some intelligence (copying your own bank card would be a great way to see who was on to you) and that seems unlikely since they're in the process of being investigated before having a chance to use the card. The first reason seems more likely, I'm guessing they don't want to tarnish the company's name in case they end up being innocent.
This is what bothers me... We tend to be creatures of habit... we reguarly frequent the same stores and restaurants. In the last couple months, I can't think of anywhere we've used the debit card that would be out of the ordinary for us... So there's a good chance we'll revisit the place and use the bank card again and if we do that, my fiance will have to under go this process again and once again risk losing money.
I realize this could be damaging to the business but as far as I'm concerned the customer is the number one priority and in this case they should be made aware of the business that is under investigation. Now you don't need to go out with press releases and news conferences regarding the name of the business but you should, at the very least, inform the people that have been affected by this. When you don't you are saying you value the privacy of the business above the privacy of the individual and that's just wrong.
I had the same thing happen to me over the holidays. I was told by my back that my credit card was used at a location that was being investigated for stealing numbers and that I was going to get a new one. Therefore, I had no credit card during the Christmas holidays and that hurt.
I asked the guy what store was being investigated, and of course, he didn’t tell me. I had the same thoughts that you did. The problem is that I only use the card in a very small set of locations, which I tend to frequent quite a bit. So that basically means I have to be very careful about where I use my card now and that I have to be overly wary about where I have been before.
Even though all this happened to me as well, I disagree with you. It would be completely damaging to the company for them to tell you which vendor was affected. On top of that, you know that whenever someone discovers this information, that it’s going to end up on the web somewhere. Someone is going to say, “I shopped at company ‘X’ and they stole my card info”. It’s not going to affect the big companies (like TJX/Winners/Homesense), but it would affect the small mom-and-pop store. People will ALWAYS shop there. You can’t really blame a business because some rogue employee decided to steal card numbers. It’s not their fault. If it was the owners who did it, then they wouldn’t have a store anymore.
Just know that no matter where you are, on a whim, someone can decide to take your card number. It’s a fact of life. Whether or not it should be is a different question.
I dunno. I mean, what if the investigation turns up empty? And you let more than just your fiance know about the issue? That could turn into a very ugly sitaution for a smaller local business. The bank could then be liable for slander. And if there is a problem, at least the bank and you are aware of it and likely won’t actually lose any money.
I guess this is where my views differ from the norm… I think that it should be like DineSafe here in Toronto (http://app.toronto.ca/food2/overview.jsp). The concept of pass, conditional pass and fail. In order to provide interac in the store, you have to post one of these signs. A pass or “Card is Safe” posted if the establishment has never been investigated… A “Card may or may not be Safe” if the establishment is being investigated… and “Card is not Safe” if the establishment was found to be copying cards. With regular inspections and follow-ups to change status as appropriate.
Generally the little mom and pop shops… The small restaurants, the convenience stores, etc are family run… The parents at one point and the kids at another, or brothers and sisters… Or family and friends… Therefore if anyone is guilty, the entire store should be guilty… I’d really like to see this pass, conditional pass, fail system implemented for something like this.
You are making some serious generalizations here. Just because a business is family run, doesn’t mean that all the employees there are related to the family. It’s highly probably that they hire someone else to do something within the business. That often is work the cash.
The DineSafe system doesn’t really work here. It would completely destroy businesses as no one would ever enter in a store that had a Conditional Pass or Pass “credit” rating.
What would happen if someone attached a skimmer to an ATM? Would you find it acceptable if the bank branch got a “Card is not safe” rating? Who’d bank there? And how many branches get hit by this? Obviously it a big enough issue as most the big Canadian banks installed anti-skimming devices in the last little while.
Personally, I think of it like this. If you have to ask what happens at the back of a restaurant and what’s in your food, you might as well never eat out because what happens in most cases would disgust you. If you worry about your credit/debit card information being stolen, you’re better off not using it.
I guess this is where my views differ from the norm… I think that it should be like DineSafe here in Toronto (http://app.toronto.ca/food2/overview.jsp). The concept of pass, conditional pass and fail. In order to provide interac in the store, you have to post one of these signs. A pass or "Card is Safe" posted if the establishment has never been investigated… A "Card may or may not be Safe" if the establishment is being investigated… and "Card is not Safe" if the establishment was found to be copying cards. With regular inspections and follow-ups to change status as appropriate.
Generally the little mom and pop shops… The small restaurants, the convenience stores, etc are family run… The parents at one point and the kids at another, or brothers and sisters… Or family and friends… Therefore if anyone is guilty, the entire store should be guilty… I'd really like to see this pass, conditional pass, fail system implemented for something like this.