(no subject)

The bank rang me and i went over to pick up my new credit card so it was all above board! I changed the PIN on it to a new one just to be one step safer, as well. It's also got the new Chip on the front. North American cards, well Canadian ones for sure, are slowly moving to the Chip and PIN versions of credit cards. The woman in the bank said they estimate it will prevent something like 65% of credit card fraud by going to the new technology. It seems odd not to compare a signature but it is good that the credit card would never be out of your sight while the transaction is taking place. Apparently the majority of credit card scams happens because the magnetic stripe gets double swiped and copied to duplicate fake cards. The chips are very difficult to duplicate. Most retailers in Canada haven't got the new terminals yet though so for the time being, most places will still swipe and have you sign but when i travel abroad, i'm sure most of those will be the newer technology. When i got back to the office i called up to activate the card and then made sure the two places that send automatic payments to my credit card were changed over to the new number. unfortunately my balance also gets transferred ;) Can't have everything!