Yahoo News! reports :
A call centre employee has been arrested in eastern India for allegedly using the credit cards details of US customers to make online purchases.
Sulagna Ray, 23, was accused of obtaining the credit card information while selling US customers a television service as part of her job, the Times of India reported Saturday.
Ray, an aspiring fashion designer, allegedly spent 4,000 dollars (3,122 euros) using other people’s credit cards to buy an air-conditioner, microwave, cosmetics, saris, jewellery and chocolate.
This news was shocking and at the same time alarming to all those people who hear a foreign accent when you call companies like Dell, HP or any other companies. Are the westerners still comfortable giving their credit card numbers to people who speak a foreign accent over the phone? I wouldn’t be comfortable giving out my credit card details. The last thing I want along with my bills is the call center employee charges (chuckle).
I can think of some solutions for this problem. Each credit card should be associated with an email that the user has access to. After an online purchase, the credit card companies should send an email to this email address asking for authorization. This way, call center employees who have your credit card details can do nothing with a set of numbers that appear on a credit card.
The second solution would be for credit card companies to provide a web only credit card number. So, the number spelt out to the call center employees is different and this number wouldn’t work on the web.
As I think more about it, there are plenty of solutions that I can think of but it is the work that goes into altering those millions of credit card numbers that is the real issue. If the credit card companies are serious about protecting their customers, it isn’t a hard task if they are ready to shell out some dollars.
Call Center Employee (in foreign accent) : Thank you for calling so and so, my name is foreign name and I am here to help you with that purchase. Could you please read out your credit card number as it appears on your credit card.
Me : (hang up)
I ain’t taking any chances.
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September 3rd, 2006 at 4:49 pm
This has nothing to do with whether or not the call center employee has a foreign accent. Providing financial data over the phone is inherently insecure. Even if the person on the other end can be trusted, the unsecured call can easily be monitored in the middle. The growing prevalence of cordless and cellular phones makes this even simpler. Also, CC companies do provide web-only and one-time use credit cards.