Remember the credit company security leaks?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Well, there may be more to this than meets the eye. Much more. Stuff like security breaches at the Bank of America credit card issuing facility, millions in fradulent CC charges, Guys with Russian names and so much more.

Word to the wise: Check your CC bills closely.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,12704660~mode=flat~days=9999

This is a long thread, but full of interesting information. It's worth the perusal.

Oh, did I mention Check your bills?

[havocmom]

1. About those BofA cards... lots of federal workers info involved.

For many fed employees, the BofA cards arrived out of the blue, totally unsolicited by the card holders. Turns out the Federal Government decided it was an easier way to handle reimbursements for work related expenses such as travel for training, etc. but didn't bother to tell the employees first.

But the cards are in the employees' names, on THEIR credit report, considered as personal liability due to the amount of available credit when individuals go to apply for any sort of loan. That sometimes means higher rates. Originally, the limit on the damn things was astronomical.

Plenty of pissed off workers. Not knowing the cards were coming, what would have happened if they got snagged? Not asking for them, yet they count against personal credit scores. AND, this is the biggie, the government turned over all the personal info BofA needed for the cards without consent. Sweet deal for BofA and now all that info is out there in the hands of who-the-hell-knows!

Reminds me too much of the break in a couple years ago of the insurance data for military families in the Southwest. Somebody releasing federal employees and military personnel private info? What the hell gives?

[NYC]

2. Thanks for posting.

This is very important information.

[Sydnie]

3. Thanks for the heads up on this info and the site

That's quite interesting. I had to go check all my statements for this year! I will share this info for sure. Thanks!

[grannylib]

4. Exactly why I don't have any credit cards and shred any offer that gets

stuffed in my mailbox.

[htuttle]

5. Want to hear something really scary?

Most online-oriented credit card services (like Verisign) don't even check that the expiration dates are correct. All they check is whether the date is in the future.

I know this, because we run tens of thousands of credit card transactions every year at my workplace, and I've seen people enter the wrong expiration date (such as transposing year/month, etc..), and still had the transaction go through.

Worse yet, there is a simple mathematical algorithm that can determine whether a number is a potentional credit card (called the Luhn check -- it's not secret) without actually running it. Given that all the major credit card companies use a limited number of initial 4 digit prefixes, the pool of possible credit card numbers is much smaller than you might think with 16 digits.

What I think is going on with this 'pinging' of CC numbers is someone is running a CC number generator, and attempting to run small ($3) transactions with random vendors to see if the card number 'works'. If it does, they run transactions with vendors in collusion with them (often online porn or gambling related, it seems) and take the real money out the other end.

So you can get your credit card number stolen simply by some computer program 'guessing' it halfway around the world.

Yes, I'd say you SHOULD check your statement if you have a credit card.