Credit Cards On The Internet

reprinted from the MacWay EvangeList

By Dave McCollum (colorado.edu)
About a month ago I attended a "Commerce on the Internet" conference in Denver. Several of the lectures (in fact, two of the eight seminar tracts) focused specifically on credit card usage and "e-cash" on the Internet.
A VP from MasterCard stated that he knew of no case where anyone's credit card number was stolen by directly intercepting Internet traffic. He then said that there is a much greater chance of someone getting your personal info (credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc.) from trash dumpsters or ATM machines (don't leave receipts anywhere). Maybe most important was that he said that every credit card limits the person's liability to no more than $50; "gold" card users typically have that "deductible" waived. [I would suggest checking with your bank, etc., for exact info on this...]
I have personally faxed, e-mailed, and given my credit card over the phone without mishap for several years now... I don't know of anyone having had their credit card numbers compromised.

By Rick Piester (prairienet.org)
I thought you might find this note interesting:
...Investment banker and consultant Ted Prince says: "What we have is a tiny number of hacker incidents that have been blown out of proportion by the tabloid technoliterati... You have more chance of getting your credit-card number stolen in a restaurant or on a phone in Grand Central Station than you do of having it stolen on the Internet." (Computerworld 5/29/95 p.96)

By Bill Modesitt at Maui Software, Makawao, Maui, Hawaii
I accept credit cards for my shareware products TimeTracker and TimeSlice (previously mentioned in MacChat, thank you), and I've processed over 1,000 credit orders over the last year from people sending me their credit card numbers over the Internet, and no one has ever reported any problems. The only problem I had was someone once gave me a stolen credit card number, which I took a loss on. No person registering by email and credit card has ever had any trouble (that I'm aware of).
Is it really safe? That may depend on how many people have access to the email containing the credit card number. There's the sender, there's me, and possibly the sysop. However, I tend to think the sysops are too busy to peruse other people's email.

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