If you’ve been following the news today you probably heard about a potential data compromise to credit card holders. MasterCard has alerted payment card issuers (the banks) regarding accounts that are potentially at risk. And as we’ve stated in the press, MasterCard’s own systems have not been compromised. However, it is critical that as a consumer, you take responsibility for protecting your personal data. There are three tips we can offer to help you do this:
First, always monitor your accounts and statements and if you are concerned about possible unauthorized transactions, immediately contact your card issuing bank.
Second, be assured that in most countries, MasterCard cardholders are protected by zero liability for unauthorized transactions. This means that our customers are not responsible should an unauthorized transaction occur.
Finally, MasterCard and financial institutions do not proactively solicit personal or payment card information from customers. As a result, be wary of unsolicited requests by anyone claiming to represent one of these entities.
Let us know if these tips are helpful or if you have data security tips of your own to share.
3 Comments
These tips are helpful. Reassuring to know that cardholders are protected for unauthorized transactions. It seems that scammers are getting more and more ingenious in their attempts to access personal information. My parents have been receiving calls from somebody purporting to be from Microsoft requesting their personal details. Luckily enough they realized it was fishy.
Why don’t Mastercard and Visa issue RSA tokens to use in conjunction with credit cards so that the card holder must enter the correct RSA number at the point of sale? This would put a stop to most credit card fraud.
Thank you for your comment. MasterCard is committed to our customer’s data security. You can read more about that on our Card Security page