huzzah/boo

Boo: my credit card number was compromised.

Huzzah: Chase rocks. The number has been cancelled, charges blocked, new card being UPSed my way.

This is the second or third time this has happened to me in the eleven-plus years I've been with Chase, and each time they've been awesome [in fact, they tend to catch the bad charges before I do]. The interesting part about this time is that every one of the bad charges were made *in person*, with a physical [counterfeit] card being presented. Odds are they didn't have the three-digit security code, which is why they resorted to a fake card and didn't make any online purchases...and that in turn likely means it wasn't an online breach that led to the number getting out.

It's funny...so much attention is given to online shopping and security and the safety of your credit card information. But we barely hesitate to hand our card to someone at a restaurant or a shop or a corner market, don't even blink as it walks away completely out of our sight for some amount of time; lots of us don't think about how often we stand in line somewhere with our credit card in our hands or lying on top of our purchases, easy to see by anyone standing around. It's getting harder to tell when or where or even how a number gets compromised nowadays.

Long story short: do everything you can to safeguard your data, pay attention to your bills when you get them, follow up any discrepancies as soon as you notice them. Sometimes you can do everything right and still have troubles...