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| Protect against fraud, identity theft |
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| Mia Thomas, Burnaby Now |
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1/10/2009 - Plastic might imply fake in some instances, but when it comes to money, plastic is every bit as real as paper.
Which means protecting debit and credit cards as carefully as cash, said Maura Drew-Lytle, spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association, a group that includes 51 Canadian banks.
At a time of year when people are shopping more frequently and spending more money, they may forget to take their usual precautions and fall victim to thieves who steal their credit or debit cards.
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Font:****"It's something, obviously, that the industry takes very seriously, and there's a lot going on to fight this type of fraud," said Drew-Lytle.
Although people might be shopping more at this time of year and, possibly, more vulnerable to credit or debit fraud, Cpl. Alexandra Mulvihill of the Burnaby RCMP noted that police don't see this as a seasonal crime.
"It's such a problem all year," she said. "Identity theft and fraud is becoming such an issue. ... It's just always there, unfortunately."
Technology is always trying to stay one step ahead of the thieves, with strategies that include electronic monitoring that detects changes in usual spending patterns, such as if a card that's always used in the Lower Mainland for small purchases is suddenly being used to buy large items in Toronto or Chicago or if, instead of the usual $100 withdrawal from a machine, someone is trying to withdraw $1,000.
"It's pretty sophisticated monitoring that's going on," Drew-Lytle said.
Mulvihill added, "Technology's advancing for the criminals but also for the consumers. That's going to go a long way to protecting people."
Most of the problems in the past have been with credit cards, which rely on a signature and photo identification that aren't always checked by a cashier.
"Debit card fraud is a newer thing," Drew-Lytle said, explaining that personal identification numbers (PINs) have meant added security for years.
Although within the past decade even they are becoming vulnerable to fraudsters.
In Europe, people need a PIN when they use their credit cards, thanks to a technology that integrates a microchip that's physically within the card and a matching PIN.
Called, simply, chip-and-PIN, it's more secure than a PIN alone and far more secure than a signature, Drew-Lytle noted.
"It's virtually impossible to recreate the chip," she said.
The chip-and-PIN system will be familiar to Canadian consumers in the next few years.
"That's coming here very soon," Drew-Lytle said, explaining it's starting with a small-scale trial in the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario before being rolled out across the country.
"It's a matter of getting the cards into people's hands and getting them to use them."
Until Canadians get their chip-and-PIN cards, they can take the usual - and by now familiar - precautions when using a debit or credit card, both Mulvihill and Drew-Lytle stress. Always protect the PIN, which means not sharing it with anyone or writing it down, and cover the keypad with one's free hand when using it, especially in a store for debit-card purchases.
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