[ale] OT: I AM paranoid!

[Jim Philips]

On Friday 10 October 2003 05:08 pm, runman at speedfactory.net wrote:
> I have worked for First Data and now for another company of the same ilk
> - both financial services companies that deal with card transactions and
> you are entirely correct to a great degree.  Who you have that handles
> the atm transactions  also determines costs - and everyone has a finger
> in the pie.  From card readers (and their programming), fraud insurance
> for the merchant and paying bank and receiving banks, receivables,
> network fees, etc etc... it is a complex web.  Visa is an association of
> banks (one of many assiciations) and it takes a cut on every
> transaction, as well as others.  Walmart wants no one to take anything
> from them and thus one of the many reasons for the lawsuit.
>
> CC say theirs is more secure because no one will see your pin, but your
> pin is useless without the card.  I think those cards on a keychain are
> the most stupid ideas ever - they have no photo protection and seem way
> to easy to lose.

The thing that still amazes me about all of this is that a site as big as 
Walmart.com would equate encryption with security and try to foist that on 
their customers. They have available the means to verify their customers in 
much better ways, but they choose not to do it. This means that they are just 
willing to let you get ripped off, because doing things any other way would 
cost them a few pennies more per transaction.