When I was in high school — back in the stone age of the Internet – I had a friend who did not believe in personal privacy.  His belief was that if he could use his modem to access information, then the information was intended for him to access.  He and his "cronies" would regularly hack into credit card companies’ computers, steal other people’s account information and use that information to make purchases over the telephone.  When they finally got caught, an enormous scandal erupted.  Today, of course, such crimes are commonplace.  My spam filter has at least half a dozen emails from Fifth -Third Bank asking me to update my account information (I do not have one), not to mention that crazy Nigerian prince who keeps emailing me.

I would bet, if we were to take an unofficial poll of our readers, I would find that at least 75% or more of you have been affected by some type of online credit card fraud.  For example, we can take this simple question as an informal poll.  Feel free to answer in the comments:

Have you, or anyone you know, been a victim of any of the following:

1) incorrect charges on your credit card

2) credit card fraud

3) having your credit card number stolen

4) identity theft (in all of its forms).

With the advent of online shopping, eBay, Amazon.com, and other opportunities to use your credit card to unload your hard earned money to online retailers and sellers (both reputable and not), the opportunity for theft and fraud increases significantly. 

There is a common presumption that this is something that happens to other people, but the reality is that it happens to all of us…on a daily basis.  In fact, my parents recently had their credit card number stolen online, and had several incorrect charges put on it (my favorite of which was a computer CD which was shipped to the billing address so my parents got the program and the thief was emailed the code to unlock it.)

In light of all of this, Solsie.com is reporting that eBay is getting ready to offer its PayPal users a password-generating key fob , which displays a new one-time six-digit code password every 30 seconds. PayPal clients who opt to use the device will enter this password along with their regular credentials when signing into the service. It is hoped that this will provide another weapon in the battle against data-thieves and phishing scams.

The “PayPal Security Key” will cost $5 for personal PayPal accounts, but will be free for business accounts.  It is not clear whether it will be expanded to non-eBay PayPal payments.  In my opinion, any step to secure our personal data from criminals like my high school friend, is a a welcome and necessary step in the right direction.

Technorati Tags: PayPal – eBay – credit card – fraud – identity theft