Chuck Schumer Wrong on No-Swipes

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York stood on a street corner amid holiday shoppers and attempted to compare no-swipe credit card devices to “walking around with your credit card information on your back.” I would counter that false claim by comparing standing on a street corner preaching gloom and doom about no-swipe credit cards to- standing on a street corner proclaiming the end of the world.

From the AP here:

NEW YORK – No-swipe credit cards that use radio waves to relay their data put consumers at increased risk of identity theft, Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday.

Tens of millions of no-swipe credit cards have been issued in the past year. When a customer uses the credit card to make a purchase, the card is processed by a radio frequency identification reader operated by the retailer.

Schumer said thieves can equip themselves with the radio frequency readers to steal information from the credit cards, which are being marketed heavily as time savers.

“All you need to be is within a couple of feet of the customer,” Schumer said. “You may as well put your credit card information on a big sign on your back.”

“The card and the reader in the terminal are safe and secure, and the transaction is handled the same way that credit cards are managed today,” Thomas O’Donnell, senior vice president of Chase cards services, said when the company announced the launch of its blink cards last year.

Chuckie couldn’t be more wrong on this one. No-swipe credit cards decrease the risk of identity theft by not printing the account information on a card. Most identity theft occurs because thieves look at credit cards and memorize them, or use cameras or picture phones to record the printed information on a credit card.

Schumer also asserts that thieves walk around with radio receivers in their pants, sidling up next to people to get close enough to get a reading on the no-swipe device. First, the thief will only get encrypted information. Second, anyone that gets that close to me anywhere will get a fist in the face.

The Democratic senator is trying to use scare tactics to shake consumers during the Holiday season. Its deplorable, and Schumer is wrong. I defy Schumer to point out a case where a thief committed identity theft from a credit card wand.