Boing Boing Reports Citibank Under Fraud Attack

Boing Boing has scooped the press by reporting Citibank is under some sort of fraud attack.

AND in keeping with what seems to be a growing trend, it appears debit cards are being targeted.

Jake Appelbaum, who is currently in Toronto with a useless debit card, wrote:

"The supervisor identified herself as a manager named Carla ID#CRU194. I identified myself as an upset customer whose account was locked for some unknown reason. She asked me a few questions about my location, my issue and then informed me that my card was suspected of fraud."

"Naturally, I perked my ears up and asked for details of any fraud. She informed me that there had been no direct fraudulent transactions on my account. Rather, she informed me that the ATM networks of Canada, Russia and the United Kingdom have been compromised. I used the term class break as a question and she repeated that there has been a class break of the ATM networks in those countries. The ATM network in Canada has been compromised and as a result, using my ATM card over the Canadian network locked my account automatically. She informed me that this has been an ongoing issue for the last two weeks. When I asked why there was no media attention, she said she wasn't sure. I said it was a pretty big deal and she agreed."

"She informed me that I would have to return to the United States to change my pin number before my card would be valid and in a usable state again. When I informed her that I would be traveling outside of the United States for at least a few months, possibly up to six, she repeated that I would have to re-enter the United States to fix the problem."

Poor Jake, stuck in Toronto with no way to get cash and he will have to cross the border to get his PIN number fixed. A testament on how fraud victims are treated, which from what I hear is a frustrating experience for all.

I did some checking and Carla ID#CRU194 was right. This doesn't seem to have hit the mainstream media. I probably should let the people at Boing Boing know that the company (bank), who has been breached tends to be very tight lipped about it.

Maybe if they provided better customer service to Jake, it still would be a deep dark secret.

Interestingly enough, here is a post, I wrote a couple of days ago:

Debit Card Breaches, A Growing Problem

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse tracks data breaches, the number and velocity of them are pretty scary:

A Chronology of Data Breaches Since the ChoicePoint Incident

Here is my rant on the lack of sophistication in some of these data breaches:

Stealing Data Shouldn't be so Darned Easy

For the full post by Jake and Boing Boing, click on the title of this post.