Contactless Credit Cards

The UK credit card companies are launching credit cards in which you don’t have to make contact with the payment system. The consumers are now fearing this might leave them open to credit card fraud. A poll was completed on 2200 UK residents. Of that amount 77 percent believes the contactless credit cards are going to open them up for fraud. The credit cards don’t work with a pin as long as the payment is under a certain amount of pounds.

For example, the credit card charges that are under 10 pounds will not require a signature or a pin to be entered. About half of the individuals surveyed believe the crime will rise and about 34 percent believe the crime will be hacking into personal details.

The contactless cards have been on the market since September 2007, but 88 percent of the UK residents haven’t even heard of these new cards. The point of the card is to make the wait in a line shorter by not having to dig out change or sign for the purchase. However, 23 percent of the 49 percent who believe the cards will make things quicker, are worried about the control being out of their hands. There are going to be about 5 million of these cards on the market by the end of 2008 replacing other options.