And you guys think that your credit cards are secure.

I don’t care if it’s Gold or Silver, Platinum or unlimited credit. Magnetic stripe or smart chip. Whether Citibank or Chase issued it- you’re in heavy risk of being defrauded.   You can lose a great deal of money- and I don’t mean about getting robbed  on the street. You will bleed your money to the shady call center agent who has access to your entire credit record. Everything.

The other day, I had the pleasure of being toured by a ranking member of a top  call center which services a Fortune 100 bank. Both the call center and the bank have “C” as their starting letters and command a great deal of respect in their industries.  In terms of assets, both hold the top three positions. Naturally, people think they’re secure in their hands.

What I found out was ghastly.

For starters, I discovered that call center agents have full access to your credit card details. That means the digits on your credit card, the security number, expiry date, your transactions and your personal details. In just a few keystrokes, they can call up multiple screens with names, numbers and figures. Except for extremely wealthy clients like Oprah that is. Heavy rollers have a separate division handling their accounts. Sucks to the rest of us.

Now this cool manager told me how agents are ‘forbidden’ from lugging around camera phones while at work. The measure prevents taking snapshots of critical data that can be used for making unauthorized purchases. Here’s the funny thing. Many agents take the mandate as a suggestion, not a rule. Virtually everyone was lugging around camera phones. And digital SLRs! Hmmm… what was the point of having all those team leaders, QAs and security guards milling around?

Breach of trust occurs often, according to the manager. Rogue agents  to amass card information and use them at internet cafes through proxy servers. In order to minimize getting caught, they spend $50 here, $100 there… preferably at the favorite stores of the defrauded clients. Goods are then shipped to multiple PO Box and picked up by accomplices. This minimal effort to eliminates  suspicion.

A few have been caught already- the stupid ones. These blokes get greedy and spend $4000 on a single card- perhaps for trinkets at sextoys.com. That raises red flags. But hell, who cares? The call center just terminates the rogue without filing cases because it’s tough to prove. Then the agent goes to another center and repeats the scam. Over and over and over.

From the manager’s tale of woe, I discovered how the typical rogue can net $10,000 or more in a month or two. That’s about a year of his salary. The fear of getting caught doesn’t matter, after all, the worst that can happen is getting fired. Who the crap cares? He’s already fleeced ten grand into the pocket.

 Burn your cards folks. Stick with debit cards.