William H. Geiger III writes:
This is one thing I have never understood about the greate concern users have over their CC #'s. If ,as Eric points out , the upstream provider goes Cristmas shopping on your Mastercard it is not the user who is out the money! The person who gets stuck with the bill is the Vendors who sell products to someone who is not authorized to use your card.
Actually, it's the credit card issuer who eats it. The issuer guarantees the merchant payment as long as the charge is approved at the point of sale. This is why merchants almost never care who or what presents the card, as long as the card is valid. The actual owner of the card is also protected against having to pay fradulent charges, as long as he informs the card company in a timely manner if the card is lost, stolen, or misused. The cost of guaranteeing any valid card is as good as cash to the merchant, and holding the consumer harmless for fraud, is born through fees and interest on card balances, and merchant fees for processing credit card transactions. Of course, the attitude of "why should I care if my card is used fradulently, I won't have to pay" raises credit card costs to everyone, as the card companies simply recycle the added expense back to their customers. You may recall a recent news story in which someone collected a huge number of credit card numbers from a major vendor doing business on the Net, and attempted to market them. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"