Privacy Fears Deter Web Users From Online Shopping

Megalith

Megalith

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I found this kind of interesting because there are plenty of huge breaches that come from brick-and-mortar retail.

When respondents were asked what concerned them the most about online privacy and security, 63% said identity theft. The respondents, who were allowed to give multiple answers, also cited credit card or banking fraud (45%), data collection by online services (23%), loss of control over personal data (22%) and data collection by the government (18%); 13% also said they were concerned about threats to personal safety. The data suggested 19% of US online households had been affected by an online security breach in the previous year. The NTIA said this represented about 19 million American households.
 
I don't think brick and mortar is any safer. I can easily name several hotels, retailers, etc that have been breached in recent years. I use a credit card (not debit) - I am less responsible for fraudulent chargers.
I use Mastercard for my purchases. They are pretty sensitive to charges you make. If in doubt, they block it and send me a text. If I reply back with the ok message, they will let the charge go through. While annoying (and some websites don't handle it well), I would suppose this could block some fraudulent charges.
As far as breaches, not sure how to safeguard these completely. I use a password manager - every site has a different, strong as possible password. All of my challenge questions (favorite color, school mascot, first car, etc) - all random crap and unique to every site. If I ever lose my password manager database, I am screwed.
 
Interesting read. My mom has been paranoid for years and has never ordered from online vendors. She's old school and would much rather be present in the stores when making purchases. Irony is she loves to shop at Target...
 
I work in the industry and 80%+ of all fraud is due to brick and mortar breaches. There is also a misconception on who takes the brunt of the fraud. Visa (who we use as our credit/debit provider) has consumer 0 liability. It limits consumers to no more than $50 of fraudulent charges which are passed on to your small and medium sized community banks and Credit Unions. In reality the consumer never pays a cent, debit or credit. I'm informed of all CAMS (compromised account management system) reports and have had a debit or credit card on nearly all of the brick and mortar breaches - the only one I skirted was needless markup (Nieman Marcus). I haven't had one card reissued.

Assume your card is compromised. Check your online banking or statements regularly. Go on with life and purchase where it's cheapest. This will never end - accept it or try to go back to cash.

One thing to note though is that with the US finally enforcing chip, we are seeing a lot more card not present fraud. It creates the perception that it is due to online shopping, but most of the cards were part of the recent B&M breaches - just changing the avenue when doing the transaction.
 
If your card isn't chipped, then it's probably at least as vulnerable at a restaurant as online and probably more so.
 
I really think people got way too dependent on technology way too fast, although maybe they're realizing it a little too late now that all the transactions go through the web. At least with checks, you had a paper trail and a signature for handwriting analysis so you could prove it wasn't your handwriting. Very few places that take cards actually require a signature, even though the machines allow for it.

Cash really isn't the best answer, because anyone could steal that. If you carry cash around and go into stores physically, you trade off the risk of identity theft with the risk of being mugged if someone sees you have cash.

I'm honestly not sure what the answer is, but I really think we're going to need something more secure than credit cards in the end. I'm thinking something like a prepaid card with a limited amount of funds that requires a PIN, signature, and a chip would be a good compromise. That way, even if they get past all three measures somehow, they still only get part of your money.

For online transactions, I think TPM modules are underutilized.
 
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People publish every detail of their lives on their Space Faces and My Twits yet a secure transaction over an encrypted connection is just too scary...

Most card fraud is from brick and mortar stores, by the way. Much less secure when the card is out in view or even out of your hand briefly.
 
athenian200 said:
I'm honestly not sure what the answer is, but I really think we're going to need something more secure than credit cards in the end. I'm thinking something like a prepaid card with a limited amount of funds that requires a PIN, signature, and a chip would be a good compromise. That way, even if they get past all three measures somehow, they still only get part of your money.

For online transactions, I think TPM modules are underutilized.
Click to expand...

It's bitcoin (or something similar). All transactions can be monitored and traced and everyone's worth can be known at any given time. You could also be locked out of "the system" if needed. Bitcoin itself does not allow these features, but the federally sanctioned version would have these features.
 
athenian200 said:
I'm honestly not sure what the answer is, but I really think we're going to need something more secure than credit cards in the end.
Click to expand...

How about punishing the people who commit the fraud instead of ignoring it or giving them a slap on the wrist?
For the most part, the credit card companies don't bother going after the fraudsters. About the only time they get prosecuted is if the police are already investigating someone and they also find them with multiple fraudulent credit cards.

I think there would be much less fraud, if it was 10 years for the first offence, and life/death penalty after the 3rd arrest. Same for the people breaking into the banks/retailers and stealing information.
 
nutzo said:
How about punishing the people who commit the fraud instead of ignoring it or giving them a slap on the wrist?
For the most part, the credit card companies don't bother going after the fraudsters. About the only time they get prosecuted is if the police are already investigating someone and they also find them with multiple fraudulent credit cards.

I think there would be much less fraud, if it was 10 years for the first offence, and life/death penalty after the 3rd arrest. Same for the people breaking into the banks/retailers and stealing information.
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me. I assumed they were punishing it and people were doing it anyway. Given some of the computer crimes they go out of their way to impose harsh punishments for, I can't believe credit card fraud and identity theft aren't considered a big deal.
 
steakman1971 said:
I use a password manager - every site has a different, strong as possible password. All of my challenge questions (favorite color, school mascot, first car, etc) - all random crap and unique to every site. If I ever lose my password manager database, I am screwed.
Click to expand...

I just hacked yer password manager. :p
 
Funny enough, I have only had two cards have fraudulent charges, and those two were the ones I use for local stores and gas. I have 4 cards, an Amazon card, for the points that gets used only on Amazon, and another card for all other online shopping. Then one card for local stores and another for gas, first card was the one for local stores, got some massive charges on it and caught right away, few months later my gas card was hit, didn't notice at first because the charges were small 4-8 bucks, and blended in with all the gas station drinks/snacks, then 6 subs to some random ass online dating sites, called right away about it and there were some $500+ charges pending that were not even showing yet for me the guy said, card was canceled and new one sent.

Over all, I have FAR less faith in local POS systems than online. So far, I have now changed to using a card at the pump only, and try and use cash everywhere else, online is still the same cards I have always used, it is also worth noting 80-90% of my shopping, other than food items is done online, so the amount of transactions and stores I buy from online is far greater than local, and yet the local cards are the ones that have been stolen.
 
I have a separate account for online use only and carry only a little more than what is needed. In 20 some years i have only had 1 issue,a clown we rented a game server from and had dropped came back in and charged me 4 years after no longer using him. Notified paypal and they instantly resolved the issue.
If you are going to purchase online one needs to be diligent in watching there accounts.
I do try to use cash only when dealing locally.
 
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