credit card fraud
just returned from u.s.a., where our last stay was at the Baldwin Hotel on Grant Street San Francisco. This was the only hotel in u.s.a. where I and my travelling companions both provided amex copies at checkin. after our return home, it was discovered six attempts (some successful) had been made to use my card. My friends also had three attempts made on theirs. after posting a review on tripadviser, I was contacted by a chap from Dublin who had stayed at the same hotel at the same time as us, and his card also was compromised. according to my amex card issuer, unless fraud involves thousands of dollars, they simply debit the merchants for any fraudulent transactions, and take no action to catch the perpetrators. if this is true, it is a green light to crooks as long as they keep the amounts defrauded below $1000. be wary about providing credit card details to this hotel.1
Landrigan, Thanks for your post. That's a bummer, to be sure. I hope it didn't affect your holiday whileyou were enjoying the time. I was uncertain what you mean by we " provided Amex copies
at checkin." Was this anything other than handing the desk clerk your credit card? Did
you watch what the clerk did while they held the card?
2
I got burned in the US as well, I think it was at The Westway Diner in Manhattan. It could have been Las Vegas but all attempts to use my card were in NYC and the diner was the only place in NYC where I used the card. I'm not going to incur any cost but it is outrageous.It is ridiculous that the US and many other countries are not full-blown chip and pin places. Shockingly third world security-wise.
3
Baldwin Hotel321 Grant Ave,
94108. You could contact the Better Business Bureau at :
GOLDENGATE.BBB.ORG /
They will be very interested in your story.
good luck.
4
I agree that it's unsatisfactory that the whole world isn't chip and pin. We basically do not use a credit card overseas at all ..... we pre-pay from home (virtually) all hotels, flights, and cars, and use the local cash for most other things. Plus we carry a travel-money (debit/credit) card that has not too much on it, and no form of personal identification either - just a number.7
Tap in with Barclays in the UK as well; I don't know about others. They even sent me a little plastic thing which attach to the outside of your phone to tap in with. Or something. I didn't pay much attention as I never planned to use it and destroyed it. It was this8
Oil is never going to cost more than we can afford, and what we have is what we will use. Miles away from being a problem. Crude's been over USD100 before (depending on what year prices you want to use). It'll fall below and rise above again. It is very possible that the price is only a 9/11 effect. It was down below 60 in 2007 and went up after that so maybe that is a recession thing (well it coincides but I can't see cause and effect).I don't think your imagined peak oil disaster crash thing is gunna happen the OPEC countries still have enough to rig prices and high prices mean fracking and shale become affordable alternatives.
9
You've resorted to a strawman tactic pretty quickly, which isn't surprising, since most peak-oil deniers and climate-change deniers always seem to do so.I said nothing about a 'disaster crash thing' ... peak oil is the point when the world produces the maximum amount of oil in a given year (say), and never reaches that level again, despite new discoveries, new technologies, and enhanced recovery techniques. And coupled with decreasing exports, there is increasing demand from China, India, and the producer nations themselves. The math is relentless.
The US peaked in 1970 ... despite the billions spent since on exploration and enhanced extraction. It is a question of geology, more than economics (aka human hubris).
10
the looser US rules allow the credit card companies to push the costs of fraud onto the merchants and consumers, so it's not worth it for them to invest in chip and PINif that's done with higher interest rates, the consumer can avoid the costs of fraud by paying the full balance off every month.
it's rather easy to have fraudulent charges reversed in the US, at least it has been for me the couple of times it happened, so it's not that big of a deal other than the hassle to get the card replaced.
11
... the consumer can avoid the costs of fraud by paying the full balance off every month.In Australia, my banking friends say such customers (like me) are nicknamed "scum" - nice eh. Tells you all you need to know about our august financial institutions.
12
I am also 'scum'.My non-scum friends get letters every month advising them that their credit limit can be increased with just a phone call. No such 'luck' for me....
At my bank there is a link to automatically increase your credit limit, but there is no such link to reduce the limit.
When I once rang them up to reduce my card limit (because I was going overseas), they were totally stunned, and had no idea what to do..........
13
My partner (also dead-set scum) works with a lot of 30-40 somethings (mostly women) in an educational environment ... they happily chat in the staff room about all the credit cards they have maxed out ... and how clever they are juggling it all. They don't seem clever enough to realise they're paying close to 15% on their balances though.
