Stolen Credit Cards - You Aren't Really Protected

Let's be clear here, if your credit cards compromised and used fraudulently, the credit card issuers will protect you up to $50, although they may end up taking nothing to keep your business and you happy so you keep using your cards. After all, they make money from the seller every time you use that card. It's a huge business.

I am not saying you won't get your money back, what I am saying is that you still aren't protected.

Let me explain, credit card companies get their money back from the selling merchants, so they take no loss. That's right, credit card issuers like Visa, American Express, Master Card, Diners, Discover take no loss...zilch. The selling merchant takes the entire hit. Issuers don't care enough to stop this crime, because they don't take a financial hit.

There have been many situations that I have experienced where fraud attempts are made and the fraudster wants to ship to a certain address. Although we've stopped the fraud, we have information on an address where the bad guys are waiting for their shipment. The credit card companies don't have a system to report. Even if we identify the card number in question, we can't report the card number in for Visa and MasterCard as we don't know who the issuing institution is. Only the card holder can report it, by then many frauds have already taken place and businesses start to lose.

When it comes to the police, they view each incident as too small an amount, with outside jurisdiction and man power issues. Most merchants don't have time to follow up, after all the loss has been stopped so they let it go.

In the case of successful frauds, they aren't discovered until later, when the fraudsters are long gone. The business won't likely recover anything, so they don't bother reporting and just write off the loss.

So how does this affect you and everyone else?

Because merchants are left in the dust, and don't find it worthwhile to report and prosecute, the criminals continue their rampage unabated. We as citizens continue to be victims of identity theft, phishing, break & enters (to steal identities), robberies etc.

Things are getting worse because no one is pursuing fraudsters and it is easy money for them with little risk. But it causes a ripple affect back down to us.

Businesses need to pursue an prosecute. Law enforcement needs help.

As an ex law enforcement officer turned e-commerce guru ;-) I saw this happening all the time. We stopped frauds, but didn't report it because of all the red tape associated with it. Bad guys were getting away, unchallenged.

So unless we somehow figure out a better way to stop online fraud, we continue to be victims in fear of crime around us. Business owners need to start reporting and prosecuting, law enforcement needs better coordination and resources to fight this crime.

In 2007 credit card fraud is projected to be at $2.6 billion dollars, these card numbers have to come from somewhere and it's up to us all to stop it.

For company information go to: http://www.ewebsecure.com