here's one way to cut down on identity theft and credit card fraud. What if you could carry a fake credit card (with a $0 credit limit), that whenever someone tries to swipe it, it is rejected and an alarm is sounded that this is a stolen card? If you carry this in your wallet, and your wallet gets lost or stolen, whoever tries to use it gets surprised.Better yet, what if you could register all your credit/debit cards with it, so they would all have a temporary hold put on them if the trojan horse card was used?This couldn't be a new business for someone- -it wouldhave to be run by M/C or Visa or AMEX, but it could work.
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Your solution is based on the assumption that identity theft relies on your wallet getting stolen. Is it known that this true in most cases?One good thing though is that using this trojan card could help the cops find identitiy theft "cartels".
If you're carrying those in your wallet, I see a couple of problems: what if you accidentally use a fake card when purchasing something? Similarly, why wouldn't a thief simply use the real cards?
Crooks use gas stations to test whether credit cards are real. If the card doesn't go through, they throw is out. It's a good idea, just sort of useless.
They should just make it that you have to use your PIN number for every transaction ATM, or otherwise. Carrying around a fake card would be pointless, and if you had a fake card, you would probably have a real card in there too, whats to stop the theif from using the real card?
It wouldn't work.
Interesting idea. Instead of rejecting the card, have it set up to accept the transaction (within reasonable $), but trigger an immediate notification to the theft dept of the credit card company. The concept has potential.
This would absolutely work ... to a degree.
Physical theft: Odds are, the thief will try to use ALL the cards eventually. The purpose behind the trojan card is not to stop fraudulent charges entirely, but to minimize them. Once the Trojan card is used, it will "lock" the other cards. Yes, there is a chance the other cards will be used first, but in this scenario, the trojan card will minimize fraudulent spending on all cards concerned. Now, instead of having to dispute dozens of fraudulent charges, you only have to dispute a few, saving you time, and ultimately saving you money.
Digital theft: This would not be very effective at stopping a crook who has your cc number digitally, and sells it to someone online who will ring up bogus charges.
To that, I would piggy back on the idea, and have CC companies introduce cards that are enabled for "online" spending, and cards that are not. Attach a large password to the "online"-enabled card, that will be required for all online purchases. If someone steals your number digitally, they could not charge a cent to that card unless they also had the passcode. All other cards that do not have an "online" flag set will act as trojan cards if someone attempts to use them online.
With recent password analysis, you could even put the passcode on the card -- as this will NOT be captured should someone get a digital copy of the card (hacking into banks computer, robbing a UPS man to get tape backups, etc.)
If the physical card were captured, and the passcode compromised, then that scenario becomes the same as any current credit-card scenario... (unless a trojan card is thrown into the mix. :)
Also not mentioned yet is the awesome deterrent that this would create for potential credit card thieves. If issuing credit card companies required everyone to have at least one, this could turn out to be the perfect solution. (Imagine if every responsible citizen carried a concealed weapon, except the trojan card idea isn't physically dangerous.) Very good idea!
How about when you have these cards taken and you call the card company they would notify the cops and the cops could track the bad guy. The Cops could get the tape from the store so they could ID. the bad guy.
Great idea. As an aside, a few people figured out a few things that this would not help with. Good job & all that, but how did they miss the obvious positives here?
Also, if you used the "lock" by mistake, they would call you & you'd explain.
Additionally, with all the cameras in public these days... it would be possible to coordinate some cameras & (sometimes) find the card & its new owners. For instance, using a trojan MOBIL card at a MOBIL station... the camera owners would probably cooperate PDQ. And, after a trojan is used, ALL your cards would get the HOT treatment. Right away, the tape-owners would get a request to have the video from 7:03 - 7:16 PM copied & archived... probably for a small fee from the big cards.
GREAT IDEA!
While there are many situations where this wouldn't work, this is an excellent concept that could be done for a very small fee. I'm sure that my real Wells Fargo Credit/Debit card would look a lot smaller than a SUPER PLATNIUM DIAMOND MAGICAL DISCOVER CARD when it comes to physical theft. Which is still extremely common, some people just don't live outside the 5 o'clock news.