Park Slope Credit Card/Bank Card Fraud!

I think it is really important that we all report our seperate incidents to the 78th precinct. The Gowanus Lounge blog said there are over 5 dozen of us so far who have come forward with this now - 48 hours ago there were only a handful, so imagine how many there are who aren't online and haven't thought to check yet. I don't think most people have gotten their bank statements from that period yet, and there could easily be hundreds more.

I'm going after work on Wednesday to file a report.

Subject: Re: How can you tell if it's an RFID card?

Mrs. H. wrote: How can you tell if it's an RFID card? Would it be obvious from looking at the card itself? I don't see anything on either of my credit cards that looks or is identified as such--is it visible?

Mine is a Chase card and Chase has named their RFID system "Blink" so I know because it has a Blink symbol in the middle on the front and says "Blink". Also, on the back it has 4 curved lines that look like a radio signal symbol or something - not unlike the wavy lines on the logo for XM radio.

If your card is new within the past year or so, and with a major bank in NY, you probably have it and should research. If it is older or with a much smaller bank, I wouldn't think you would have it yet.

johnife wrote: I just called my bank (HSBC) to verify whether my Debit Mastercard is RFID enabled (it is) and to ask if they would replace it with a regular ATM card. They said that they could do that but that every time I used the ATM card for purchases there would be a 25 cent charge to my account. The guy I spoke to claimed that this was a Mastercard requirement, which I find pretty hard to believe actually. How the hell would Mastercard be able to demand that HSBC charge a quarter on every purchase with HSBC's own card? Whatever, it seems that our financial institutions are willing participants in encouraging a technology that increases the risk of fraud and have a policy of punishing consumers who pro-actively attempt to decrease their own exposure to that risk. Like we're supposed to trust the judgment of entities that have multi billion dollar losses because they can't be bothered to check whether the loans they make are likely to get repaid? It's a world gone mad, I tell you.

That really sucks! I called Chase today and asked for a non-RFID replacement and they said OK and thankfully there were no extra charges or anything.

You can wrap your RFID card in foil to prevent theft via radio frequency on the aforementioned subway and the like, but that won't stop someone from copying info the old fashioned way when you hand them your card (which is what I think probably happened to all of us anyway).

jayce wrote: RockerGirl, I am thrilled you took my hypothesis and ran with it, but you may wish to start scaling the conclusions and next steps down a bit until there is a little more conclusive info to go off of. jumping from hypothesis to a foregone conclusion is never a good way to protect yourself.

I'm not jumping to any conclusions, all I am doing is trying to stay hot on the trail of this card fraud and not assume that someone from the subway or on the sidewalk did this, and therefore become complacent in thinking that it is a lost cause and that I can't catch them.

I'm just going off what I know - that my card is always with me, except for when I hand it to someone else - and I am starting there. Also, it is coincidental that all of this is originating in the same neighborhood at the same time and not rampant all over the city, as it would tend to be if the thief was mobile. If I were a credit card thief at X-mas and had the ability to be mobile, why would I localize to Park Slope? I'd be on Park Avenue, UES, and in SoHo, personally.

It is also looking like there may be victims who don't have RFID on their cards, which would point to a classic kind of theft.

Jayce,
I understand what you are saying and I feel the same way about Park Slope. And as someone stated earlier, I really don't think this will elicit any panic in anyone or anyone will spend less money in the Slope - I can say this having personally been a victim of this fraud and knowing that this won't personally change anything for me, other than more cash and less card use.

The foil suggestion is silly, but is suggested as a home-made (and viable) alternative for people who are concerned in the short-term about protecting their cards. If you look up ways to protect your card, it's pretty much the most common suggestion, and thats why I posted it - just trying to help.

Also, I subscribe to 30 different papers on my RSS feed, 20 of them being NYC-based. Plenty of Manhattan blogs and websites have mentioned this as a Park Slope issue, and while many of their commentors from Park Slope have chimed in that it happened to them as well, no large groups of people in Manhattan have mentioned anything thus far about it happening to them, leading me to believe this specific epidemic is most-likely local. Believe me, the first thing I did was check around to see if this was happening in other neighborhoods.

I just started this thread to allow victims to communicate with eachother and the police, but this is turning into internet semantics. Someone earlier posted the name and number of the detective assigned to this case, so I suggest anyone involved give them a call and post any new information on here.