Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Peru's Banks Battle Credit Card Fraud and Skimming

(LIP-ir) -- Peru's Superintendency of Banks and Insurance (SBS) announced this week that stricter rules would be put into effect to protect the country's consumers against credit card fraud and skimming.

Fernando Arrunátegui, a manager for Peru's SBS reported that the entity was to release a revised version of a list of regulations for credit cards. In it, the SBS will require banks across the country to revamp the methods they use to avoid and monitor credit card fraud.

It was reported that banks in Peru would have a maximum of 12 months to adjust the way they supervised credit card transactions so as to better protect consumers who may be targeted by skimmers or other criminals. Arrunátegui explained that banks were being obligated to take such measures to protect Peru's credit card holders.

Furthermore, Arrunátegui reminded the owners of commercial establishments that it was their duty and responsibility to ask customers and clients for their identification card (DNI) to avoid credit card scams. He also reminded consumers to never give their credit card to anyone or let it out of their sight, this way skimming was less likely.

The SBS manager affirmed that a way credit card holders were being protected was by placing chips inside of credit cards themselves. He explained that in Peru only Platinum credit cards had chips but that in 2 years all credit cards would have this feature.

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# Splaktar says :
31 October, 2007 [ 08:32 ]

Credit card fraud is a major issue here in Peru.  I personally have been hit by it.  While in Lima for a weekend, I used my credit card 2-3 times (Chiles, Wong, and one other place).  When I got back home and checked my account online, I noticed a charge for $300 at Victoria's Secret online and another for about $200 on Amazon.com.  Finally there was a charge for about $60 for LanBox.  Basically the person that stole my card information, used it to order stuff online that would be sent to LanBox in Miami, and then delivered by Lan right to their door in Lima.

I reported the issue to my CC company and contacted LanBox in the hopes that they would have the person's address and could catch them.  My CC company took care of the charges, but I never did learn if the person was caught or not.

Another friend of mine had his CC info stolen in Lima as well.  He later found almost $1000 of charges had been made to it in the US.  After talking to his CC company, I think he got it all cleared up without any major problems.

Moral of the story: If you are using CCs in Peru, make sure that your company has fraud protection and that you are covered (and not responsible for paying fraudulant charges).  Using a CC here w/o it is just asking to have it maxed out by some scammer.  Also make sure you check your account online frequently.  Even in quality establishments, there are employees who are dishonest and there are computer systems which are hardly secure to the most untrained hacker.

# Jamie says :
31 October, 2007 [ 09:05 ]

Also, fraud makes purchasing very inconvenient. Once we needed to book plane tickets ASAP from a travel agent. We could not give the card information over the phone, because they were too afraid of fraud. We had to drive in person across Lima to pay the fee.

I mainly just keep restocking my supply of cash and use the card only at ATMs - but I use mainly a Visa debit card and not my credit card.

# David says :
2 November, 2007 [ 06:50 ]

The T + C of almost all CCs worldwide mean that the bank has no obligation to repay fraudulent charges made before a theft is reported.

They only do so to preserve goodwill. My advice would be to leave your CC locked away for emergencies only. Use it sparingly with businesses (like airlines) that you trust.

If everyone did this banks would change their T+C and make some effort to catch-stop the fraudsters. Right now it's cheaper for them to let them get away with it, the banks lose a very small %, are not obliged to pay out if they don't want to. The loser-victim is the customer who has hassle-stress and worry.

# Luis Lau says :
22 November, 2007 [ 09:38 ]

In fact, CC scamming is something very easy to do. You just need the CC number, the full name of the CC holder, the expiry date and the CVV (i.e. the 3 number located on the back of the CC). And that's it.

The disadvantage of CC is that it shows all information on the card enough to make an electronic purchase at stores like Amazon.com, Pricegrabber and so on.

Right now I am using a Interbank Debit Card. If your friends has one and if you borrow to take a look on it, you can realize that the card holder's name is not shown, so this is an important factor in terms of security since the scammer won't know who is the CC holder unless you show any ID. I do recommend everybody to use Visa debit cards or any other CC that hide part of purchase info required to make an electronic transaction.

good luck,

Luis Lau

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