Contactless Card Fraud

Bet you say that to all the boys

 

And if you are good with money and know at all times what should be in there. No good if like me, you have direct debits and standing orders, and you routinely let your other half use the card for grocery shopping. I know roughly how much I should have at various points in a month, but if some took a few quid out, I wouldn't realise.

 

If they had a machine that clones cards, all of them

 

You're very .... *knowledgeable* ... about all this Mr Shy Knee

 

Mr shy knee is very knowledgeable about everything. He is the Oracle.

 

@"M" , possibly a criminal mastermind or a Fagin type running a team of urchins

 

E do mention a cat a lot

 

Did you know that Urchin is derived from old French for Hedgehog

 

The French nicked it from the Latin: hericius

 

It's true. It's because contrary to popular belief, it is neither the consumer nor the techy that pushes innovation. It is the often ignorant bean counter.

I can imagine the meeting to come up with contactless payments:

Business person A represents retailers and other businesses that take a lot of fairly small card payments.

Business man B represents the card industry.

Techy represents the engineers and programmers that can make it happen.

Business person A: Once people have finished with us, we want rid of them ASAP. Then we won't need as many staff. Also we'll get more customers if the queues are shorter. Can it be done?
B: Yes. I don't know how. Techy will know.

Techy: Well you could get more staff, or devise a way to manage customer activity better.

A and B. Too expensive. No. What if we scrap the whole chip and pin and just have the machines magically know how to deduct money from the customers?

Techy: Yes, but that's stupid. What about all the security implications? Chip and pin was introduced to prevent fraud. Now you're asking me to completely bypass it and effectively leave the front door unlocked and wide open with a neon sign over it saying 'rob me'.

Business person A: Did you understand that?

B: I heard him say yes. I stopped listening after that.