New Debit Card Vulnerability

Your debit card could be stolen and used without the thieves even having to hack your PIN code.

Andrew reports that after reading advice here on The Consumerist, he swiped his debit card as a credit card at the cash register. He then tapped the “credit card” button. He received a prompt for his PIN code, even though he selected credit card. Then he hit cancel. After that, the transaction was completed.

Without signing a slip or entering a PIN code, he was able to walk away with his purchases after only swiping his debit card.

The stores were a CVS and a Brooks pharmacy.

Maybe we should just revert to carrying around wheels of cheese to barter with.

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