Thai Banks Legal Scam! When It Will Stop?

[Pib]

I have used my Be 1st card quite a few times. Carrefour, Makro, Tesco, Fuji, Central Festival department store, HomePro/Works, etc. Never had a problem with it. But I do try to limit it to reputable establishments only. Even in the US, I've had credit card fraud several times.

Any of these uses in another Thai bank's ATM? Or all the uses in a Bkk Bank ATM and checkout EDC?

Only used it at BB ATM or the debit card machine at these stores checkouts. I'm a cheap charlie...don't want to pay 20B just to get some cash!!!! I'm near Pattaya, so there are BB Be1st ATMs all over the place. Even outside every store I use it for at the checkout!

Big 10-4 on being the cheap charlie as I don't like paying the 20 baht fee when using another Thai bank ATM either.

As FYI, K-bank ATMs do not charge anything if using a Bkk Bank card...and I expect the K-bank ATMs don't charge the small fee for any other Thai bank either, as the K-bank ATM opening display says they welcome all cards. So, whenever I can't easily find a Bkk Bk ATM there is usually a K-bank ATM around (and vice versa); so, I use the Bkk Bank and K-bank ATMs for all my ATM withdrawals from my Bkk Bank account.

[Pib]

I have used my Be 1st card quite a few times. Carrefour, Makro, Tesco, Fuji, Central Festival department store, HomePro/Works, etc. Never had a problem with it. But I do try to limit it to reputable establishments only. Even in the US, I've had credit card fraud several times.

The US is actually the last holdout in the developed world in terms of Chip and PIN as this is known (smartcards) for ATM and Debit. This actually causes some problems when traveling in some countries.The UK was one of the first to impose it nationwide and all the Banks cooperated to do that. But in the "interim" period when some where CHIP and some were just magstripe there was a LOT of fraud from smart people who would steal a CHIP card, disable the Chip, dupe the data from a stolen card and give it to a merchant or ATM not setup for Chip and PIN. The process would step down to just magstripe and the fraud would in most cases go ahead. The UK was successful in the end as all banks went with this and updated their ATMs.

In the US they currently rely on the sophistication of other parts of the infrastructure, especially some of the incredible anti-fraud systems they have in place. But that is becoming more and more challenging to maintain as the threat becomes more and more serious each year.

Yeap, none of my US credit, debit, or ATM cards have chips; just the magnetic strips. Even my new Capital One Mastercard I got just this week has the magnetic strip.. But this card don't charge any foreign transaction fee, gives an approx TT exchange rate in transactions and gives 1 to 2% cash back so I'm overjoyed with the card even with its less secure magnetic strip. Regarding the anti-fraud protection, when I first used the card this week, which was nothing more than to adding it as a payment source to my US PayPal account, I got a call from one of Capital One's Fraud Protection reps a few hours later. They just wanted to confirm it was indeed me who had made the activity with the new card, even though I had notified Capital One earlier in the day during the activation process that I would frequently be using the card in Thailand, with the first buy to occur within a day or two. Also, I get an alert email immediately identifying any "foreign transactions" with the dollar amount....I really like this feature since basically all of my purchases will be in Thailand.. Even if I lost my card and didn't know I had lost it. I would sure find out I had lost my card or it had been copied via that immediate email notice, as I do check my email numerous times per day. I like that kind of fraud protection.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Pib

[ianguygil]

I have used my Be 1st card quite a few times. Carrefour, Makro, Tesco, Fuji, Central Festival department store, HomePro/Works, etc. Never had a problem with it. But I do try to limit it to reputable establishments only. Even in the US, I've had credit card fraud several times.

The US is actually the last holdout in the developed world in terms of Chip and PIN as this is known (smartcards) for ATM and Debit. This actually causes some problems when traveling in some countries.The UK was one of the first to impose it nationwide and all the Banks cooperated to do that. But in the "interim" period when some where CHIP and some were just magstripe there was a LOT of fraud from smart people who would steal a CHIP card, disable the Chip, dupe the data from a stolen card and give it to a merchant or ATM not setup for Chip and PIN. The process would step down to just magstripe and the fraud would in most cases go ahead. The UK was successful in the end as all banks went with this and updated their ATMs.

In the US they currently rely on the sophistication of other parts of the infrastructure, especially some of the incredible anti-fraud systems they have in place. But that is becoming more and more challenging to maintain as the threat becomes more and more serious each year.

Yeap, none of my US credit, debit, or ATM cards have chips; just the magnetic strips. Even my new Capital One Mastercard I got just this week has the magnetic strip.. But this card don't charge any foreign transaction fee, gives an approx TT exchange rate in transactions and gives 1 to 2% cash back so I'm overjoyed with the card even with its less secure magnetic strip. Regarding the anti-fraud protection, when I first used the card this week, which was nothing more than to adding it as a payment source to my US PayPal account, I got a call from one of Capital One's Fraud Protection reps a few hours later. They just wanted to confirm it was indeed me who had made the activity with the new card, even though I had notified Capital One earlier in the day during the activation process that I would frequently be using the card in Thailand, with the first buy to occur within a day or two. Also, I get an alert email immediately identifying any "foreign transactions" with the dollar amount....I really like this feature since basically all of my purchases will be in Thailand.. Even if I lost my card and didn't know I had lost it. I would sure find out I had lost my card or it had been copied via that immediate email notice, as I do check my email numerous times per day. I like that kind of fraud protection.

Pib,

There are 2 types of information security, Preventative and Detective. Both are required. The US tends to rely on the Detective in this case, whereby the detect after the fact and prevent it happening again. The processing times people are used to there are so fast that they will not put up with putting a real check inline in the processing. So while this experience you had would have prevented a problem if somebody was misusing your card, in fact it was detective to the event they thought was (or may be) strange, adding the card to the Paypal account.

I used to work for Bank of America in California for many years, and that, like many banks, and Cap One, run a huge AI engine in the background which picks up some fraud in realtime and other fraud quickly after the transaction completes. Very high tech stuff and all the Banks feed back into this huge AI engine in the sky each month so that they AI engine can become even more expert.

So the whole Chip and PIN thing is Preventative. The AI thing linked to notification emails etc is, in general, Detective.

Enjoy your weekend.

Ian

[Pib]

Ian: Good info indeed. Obviously, you got some real in-the-trenches work experience under your belt. Thanks...and Happy Weekend. Cheers, Pib