Be careful when paying for services with your credit card.

[Elmware]

Last month, I had moved into an apartment, and needed to transport my vehicle to my new location. I made arrangement to have someone drive the vehicle, since I only have my learners, but the vehicle is barely drivable, as the motor tends to overheat, if you drive it too long, and the battery is completely dead. So I have to use a portable jump starter, to start it. It was also dark, so the operator had troubles seeing the controls, so I had to briefly use the light on my jump starter, so he could see them. This wore the battery in the jump starter down pretty fast.

We get to an intersection, when the vehicle stalls, and there is just not enough juice to start it up, so I had to call for a tow truck. We were maybe like 4 blocks from my new home, and I had it towed over to my new place.

So when it gets here, the tow truck driver brings it right to the stall, where I had told him to place it, and unhooks it.

He then does the invoice, and I present him with my Mastercard. I was surprised that he did not have any kind of Mobile PIN pad. He had the old fashioned slip, and he rubbed my card onto it. But what he did next, is what caused me some grief. He used his two-way radio, to read the card number, expiry date and CSS number to the dispatch, and the authorization code was read right back to him, over the radio. FI should have known that this was a bad idea.

A few weeks goes by, and as I go to use my credit card, to pay for my breakfast, at Subway, the car gets declined. I get a call from the fraud department, with a message left on my voicemail, asking me to call them back. So I call, and find out that someone had been trying to make unauthorized purchases on my card.

It seems, that someone is listening, with a multi-band radio, or some sort of scanner, to these calls these companies make over the radio.

I think, that in the future, if I ever need a tow, I will ask if they use a Mobile PIN pad.

[Burnaby49]

Long time since we've heard from you Elmware. Last I can recall was some rental fraud issue, I believe on Beatty or Kingsway. Hope you finally got an acceptable new place. Vancouver's a tough rental market.

Given your description of your car's performance over a very short run I'm assuming it's almost never used. The only overheating issue that I can recall having was a defective (in my case exploding) water pump. Well that and a defective radiator.