Are banks required to disclose details if a credit card is compromised?
Nov.26, 2008 in
Personal Finance
tinkeya asked:
We were just informed by our credit union that our credit card may have been compromised. They said that there were no charges on it as yet, have frozen that account and will be issuing a new card. They indicated that they will not (or cannot) tell us how or where this happened. We had only made a few merchant purchases in the prior days, and do not do on-line purchasing except for a standing order to pay for a Netflix subscription. We had, however, just done an on-line transaction on the credit union’s secure (supposedly) Website to transfer money from checking to pay off the credit card balance before leaving on an extended trip.
We were just informed by our credit union that our credit card may have been compromised. They said that there were no charges on it as yet, have frozen that account and will be issuing a new card. They indicated that they will not (or cannot) tell us how or where this happened. We had only made a few merchant purchases in the prior days, and do not do on-line purchasing except for a standing order to pay for a Netflix subscription. We had, however, just done an on-line transaction on the credit union’s secure (supposedly) Website to transfer money from checking to pay off the credit card balance before leaving on an extended trip.
Do consumers have any legal rights to get information from banks/credit card issuers about the details of their cards being “compromised”? It strikes me that we would all be better informed and more cautious if we could have this specific information. I can see that if there is a problem on their end, they may be very unwilling to disclose it!
Met with someone at the Credit Union, who said the credit card information was “captured”, most likely during a transaction at a large chain store. They said that the likelihood of this causing a problem was very small, but that freezing the original number and issuing a new card was a safety precaution.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
yes!!!
They suppose too, but they don’t! Banks like to keep secrets!!
Most of the time they just sweep it under the rug!! We as the consumer have the right to know what going on, but the Banks lie to us, a lot!!
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
They have to disclose it. Call the bank and demand! Did you get a phone call and they asked you to verify your information? Or did the bank call and only ask for the last 4 digits. Your card may have been compromised in your conversation of it being compromised. Call the bank, or if you have time stop in and ask about when you will be receiving new cards, is your whole account frozen? You should have to go in their and open a new account. Can you get the remaining money out of your account? If you are in person and they say no I would immediately switch banks. Call your bank! Good luck.
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:43 am
No, they don’t have to disclose the information. In some cases it may actually be illegal to tell you where the credit card was compromised. In other cases they may not even know where the compromise happened. Your bank can get the information about the compromise from the stores, visa or MasterCard, and even police departments.
A compromise on a credit card doesn’t have to be within a week, a month, a year, etc., it could have happened at a place that you shopped at once 3 years ago on vacation.
The important thing is that your bank is doing what it needs to do to make sure that you suffer the least amount of inconvenience due to this unfortunate event.