How Do Credit Card Machines Work?

TyCooN

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• Oct 18, 2008

• #1

I just had a retailer refund me on some purchase credit, and it made me wonder if an AZZhole was working at a store could they just charge whatever to your card as they please?

 

longskate88

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• Oct 18, 2008

• #2

Depending on the POS system, for sure. They could quicly use carbon paper to take a print of your card, then ust manually enter it. No need for the actual card. That would be how we would do it where I work, not sure if larger dept. stores have a more advanced POS system.

 

TyCooN

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• Oct 18, 2008

• #3

Originally Posted by longskate88

Click to expand...

Depending on the POS system, for sure. They could quicly use carbon paper to take a print of your card, then ust manually enter it. No need for the actual card. That would be how we would do it where I work, not sure if larger dept. stores have a more advanced POS system.
Interesting, is it possible for a corrupt employee to load as much credit as they want onto a credit card? The reversal.

 

teddieriley

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• Oct 18, 2008

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^^i had a buddy who worked at a student store where they had a liberal return policy. every once in a while he would "process" returns by loading his own credit card with the credit. That was a few extra hundred bucks a month. there was no formal auditing at the time.

So yes it's possible, to load one's own account or that of a friend. But this is one of the easiest things to trace that an employee would have to (a) be an idiot to attempt to load his card with a large amount or (b) try to get himself fired or (c) want to go to jail, or (d) all of the above.

 

lee_44106

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• Oct 18, 2008

• #5

This is basically asking how secure is one's credit card from fraudulent usage. The answer is NOT VERY. Every chance you take with using one means somebody has the chance to swipe the number and use it to his advantage.

The only protection you have is to catch the fraudulent usage early and report it.

 

TyCooN

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• Oct 18, 2008

• #6

Originally Posted by teddieriley

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^^i had a buddy who worked at a student store where they had a liberal return policy. every once in a while he would "process" returns by loading his own credit card with the credit. That was a few extra hundred bucks a month. there was no formal auditing at the time.
beautiful