Quote:
Gandalf Parker said:
Sidenote: You dont use a MAJOR credit card when you order online do you? As someone who works with ISPs and online services I HIGHLY recommend getting a little $200 limit card with some bank NOT your main one and DONT tie it into anything (no automatic cash transfer stuff). Mark it as your "Internet Credit Card" and only use that one online.
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This only feeds internet shopping paranoia.
Your credit card number is *far* more likely to be seen and handled by other human beings who could malicously abuse it in many physical stores, and especially phone-based ordering. In those cases, human beings have access to your credit card numbers and can do whatever they want with them. There is no technology protecting you -- only the theoretical honesty of the minimum wage clerk across the counter/phone, and however many other people at the same store. (Though thankfully, many large/modern stores now have the digital card-sliders where you no longer have to give your cards to other people, so that's less of an issue these days.)
Ordering over the phone is the absolute worst, no question, and yet people do it all the time without fear, from ordering sweaters to giving donations to ordering pizzas
In contrast, almost every online retailer uses SSL (protecting the channel from you to them), and reasonably protected server-side processes where no human being ever even sees your number. Yes, there is the occassinal hacking, but the occurance and opportunity rates are far less than in traditional channels.
Fact is, ordering online is one of the safest ways to buy something with a credit card, short of using the personal card sliders that most major retail outlets have these days.
-Hiro_Antagonist