Credit Card Theft from insecure websites is a growing International problem. Hackers break into website customer databases and steal the information. Your personal and sensitive information that can be stolen includes credit card numbers, expiration dates, names, addresses, telephone numbers, and social security numbers. Tens of thousands of credit card numbers are stolen every week.
Your stolen information is then posted in private Internet chat rooms, or otherwise sold. Individuals who get a hold of this information then make fradulent purchases over the Internet. This type of crime is rarely prosecuted because of the time and expense required to track down the hackers and fraudsters.
Who is liable, and who should be held accountable?
When your credit card data is stolen, you are protected by the credit card agreement and usually not liable for any fraudulent charge of more than $50. Even then, once the fraud is removed from the account, the card holder rarely pays even the first $50.
When a stolen credit card number is used to make purchases, the credit card companies won't pay merchants for fraudulent charges. It becomes the merchants responsibility to absorb the theft as a loss. So the merchants are liable for the loss.
But the problem is that the merchants who unknowingly sell merchandise to someone using a stolen credit card, are usually not the same merchants who have insecure websites and allowed the credit card to be stolen in the first place.
That leaves the question, Who should be held ultimately accountable?
- The hackers who break into insecure websites and then sell the credit card information?
- The fraudsters who buy stolen credit cards and then make purchases with them?
- The credit card company for authorizing the charge?
- or the website operator who doesn't put enough resources into running a fully secured website?
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