I’m always surprised by the number of people who say they are afraid to use their credit card for online purchases. It’s simply misdirected fear.
You are at a greater risk of a waiter scamming your credit card information that having it stolen online. I always like to ask people who are afraid of shopping online, “So tell me, where does the waiter go with your debit card?” You just handed it to a stranger and they walked out of sight with it.
New data out just reinforces the facts.
The United States had a big effort to tackle credit card theft by requiring everyone to get a chip credit card. Merchants have not embraced the technology and still allow people to just swipe the card leaving the data potentially exposed in a hack.
“Gemini Advisory now says that 60 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen in the US in the past 12 months, and most of those were chip-based cards.
The firm found this information by trawling Dark Web sites where stolen credit card numbers are routinely sold. The firm said that 45.8 million, or 75 percent, of the card numbers posted this year were stolen from a physical point-of-sale (POS) terminal in a brick-and-mortar store, while the other 25 percent were stolen from online breaches.”
So there you have it. If you are really worried about someone getting your credit card number, statistically you are at a lower risk by only using it online.
