Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site orca.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!andrew From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: credit card crime query Message-ID: <669@orca.UUCP> Date: Sat, 3-Mar-84 22:29:28 EST Article-I.D.: orca.669 Posted: Sat Mar 3 22:29:28 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Mar-84 09:11:37 EST References: <1068@uw-june> Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 40 "I have a VISA card, and I'm wondering why no one's ever bought a VCR or something with it by phone. Every time I use the silly thing, I'm letting the sales clerk get ahold of my name, my card number, and its expiration date, which coincidentally are the exact things needed to buy something via those 800 numbers. Now I suppose that if someone were to rack up a few grand on me, I could perhaps find out the address the gear's been sent to, but they could have moved or something. My question is: why doesn't this stuff happen all the time?" Fear not, there are banking rules in place to protect the consumer, at least for VISA/Mastercard. When a mail-order company submits a credit card charge based on an order received through the mail or over the phone, they are not able to have the customer sign the slip. If the slip is not signed, the bank is not obligated to honor the charge. All the customer has to do when faced with an unauthorized telephone charge is to tell the bank that there was no authorizing signature and request that the charge be canceled. The merchant finds out about this by receiving a note from the bank stating that the charge was not honored and that the merchant's checking account has already been debited for the necessary funds. Of course, if it's a legitimate charge, the merchant will probably come after you with a civil complaint. Fortunately, none of this happens very much. Mail order consumers, at least those who purchase software, seem to be an honest lot. While running my mail-order company I submitted about a hundred credit card slips without signatures (taking a chance in each case), and never got burned. I also honored personal checks immediately, rather than wait for them to clear, and again never got burned. The times that I did get burned were when large companies sent purchase orders. We quickly developed a policy of requiring payment in advance, even from agencies of the federal government. -- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew) [UUCP] (orca!andrew.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA]