Everything You Need To Know About ‘Ghost Tapping,’ The New Scam That’s Making People Lose Thousands

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/phon...900da38e4b063602342e753?origin=home-life-unit

 

My protection: RFID protected wallet ($9) CVV scratched off.
Instant notifications on my watch about every single payment.
Reasonable card limits (25-150), I can change it anytime, if needed.
One of my banks can block/allow payments per country and per merchant.
And of course insurance, if a fraudulent card operation is reported within 48 hours.

I have not used cash in a decade without problems. LIDL, EU supermarket allows to pay locally via internet by using Lidl Pay. But instant QR payments to a verified seller will be mandatory soon, so good buy cards and good riddance.

Code:

https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight/standardising-european-qr-code-payments

 

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...-relay-malware-steals-europeans-credit-cards/

 

US person wrote this article to US audience and it shows. Credit cards are not as popular as debit cards in EU

Regarding malware mentioned in article: I could understand that if someone install some game from not-so-known publisher, but installing banking app from untrusted source instead of official bank website is on the verge of negligence in my opinion. Yes, I know some of that malware was distributed through Google Play, but still it is better to visit bank website and let it to redirect you to proper Google Play app. You at least should double-check if number of downloads matches popularity of a bank. If your bank has a few milions of customers, but app only shows 1000 downloads then it should really ring your warning bell that something is fishy.

@TairikuOkami I use similar protections. I also like to additionally have separate savings account in same bank. Saving account does not have any payment card nor any other mobile payment system linked, so a series of within-limits transaction won't drain me from day-to-day financial liquidity. And I do sometimes pay in cash still, though it is not my main method nowadays due to self cashier being mostly non-cash unfortunately.

 

I have recently started to buy shares. They basically guarantee 10-20% per year. A savings account with 3-5% per year is laughable in comparison. 183% in 5years! It takes 1-2 weeks to sell shares, so money is sort of safe from hackers.

 

I don't store everything in savings account. Only a month or so of expenses.

3-7 days cash in case of some disaster/widespread bank outage.

Day to day expenses - current account linked to card and/or instant payment system.

Week to week, end of month liquidity - savings account: not linked to anything

Additional 2-3 months of savings in CDs.

Beyond that brokerage account, but I am quite worried about US big tech shares/ETFs being too expensive currently. Remember that retail investor should only buy stock/stock shares using money that investor will not need in next 5 years (almost like you were to lose it for 5 years).

Edit: added 3-7 days cash before current account

 

Well I have plenty of food supplies, in case of any outage. I could survive for month without buying groceries. Most importantly, I have a month supply of alcohol to forget about it.
Anyway, I have 3 banks, with zero fees and multiple cards, VISA and Mastercard, if one goes down, I can use another. Besides a digital wallet is behind a corner, a digital cash in a phone.

 

Isn't the solution to simply never buy stuff from unknown sellers? Reputable shops won't scam you in general. Also never donate stuff via phone or debit/creditcard.

 

Define an unknown seller? People buy from Amazon or eBay and that is basically just a million of random sellers worldwide.

 

Isn't this ''ghost tapping'' scam based on physical transactions? When I buy stuff online I always do my research, and in real life I only buy stuff in shopping malls, problem solved!

 

Sadly even "trusted" shops have untrustworthy employees, though technically anyone can put a fake card reader on top, when the cashier is away, it is not protected, since there is nothing to steal.

Code:

https://youtu.be/nBF5wTqyW-k / https://youtu.be/Nl2jnNd_ISA

 

Yes this is true, I often don't even check the amount that I pay, because I assume they won't scam me. But so far I never had problems with NFC payments via debitcards, I never use my phone.

 

There's the old saying, "Trust, but verify". Always check everything. Even if they aren't scamming you mistakes can happen.

 

Yes correct, especially because it can sometimes be hard to proof that it was the wrong price. I do however always ask for paper receipts now that I think about it, but still.

 

I've never used NFC but if I were tempted to I wouldn't use it with a debit card. A credit card would be safer.

 

Do you mean you have broke antenna at a card or old card without contactless functionality? Because in most of those frauds or thefts it is not the card owner who uses NFC - it is the criminal who uses it.

Firstly focus on not handing over your card or phone to unknown people. If I pay electronically, I do not let anyone take payment instrument from me.

Wallet on a phone can be secured in a way that requires PIN or fingerprint before each transaction. Samsung Wallet allows for separate PINs for payments and phone unlock - that is quite a killer feature for me compared to Google Pay.

And of course additional limits on transactions also help limit the damage, but I like to prevent it completly. Even if bank would.somehow return money, those fraudulent transactions are costs for them, and costs will eventually be passed onto customers including me.

 

Actually, I made a mistake, the debitcards that are used over in Europe make use of RFID, not NFC. In Europe we don't use creditcards that much. The only drawback of contactless payments is that it's now like a wallet, so if someone steals it, they can steal a maximum of €50, before a PIN code is required.