Fwiw: if your card scheme is MasterCard or visa , regardless of (your) acquirer bank or merchant bank , you will be protected against fraud by something called chargebacks. If anyone ever uses your card to fraudulently order something , you have (a few months’) time to contact your bank and issue a “chargeback.” They will, through the MasterCard or visa (or similar) network contact the merchant’s bank, which will then take the money back out of the merchant’s account and give it back to you. E.g. if someone orders an Uber , your bank would ask Uber’s bank for the money back, and they would take it out of Uber’s account, and they have to pay a penalty to MasterCard (a “chargeback fee”). And if it happens often enough, MasterCard will bump Uber’s commission for payments. It’s tragicomic how shamelessly the banks are winning at fraud.
Side note: for low margin operations like Uber, this is hell: they can’t ask the money back from drivers, so they lose a lot of money on fraud vs their profit on regular transactions. The driver fee, the original payment, and the chargeback fee, and the potential payment commission bump.
The onus is on the merchant to avoid accepting fraudulent transactions, and if you want to contest a chargeback you better have some CSI level proof.
This is why most online shops will offer a money-back-no-questions-asked policy: they know you can get the money back one way or another, and it’s cheaper to just give it to you.
An insidious consequence of this is the price for this protection is amortised over all customers, in the end. Fraud is BIG business, and the money has to come from somewhere. Customers get angry when a merchant adds a CC surcharge, but they end up paying that surcharge anyway, it’s just not explicitly listed. And if you pay cash, you pay it too, without any of the protections. Cash payers subsidise CC holders.†
Long story short: don’t be nervous. Your card is safe. (Unless you’re on a different scheme with different rules, of course)
(This assumes regular payments without extra auth, like e.g. PIN or 3D Secure. Those rules differ slightly.)
†: to be completely fair: there are costs associated with cash, too.
Side note: for low margin operations like Uber, this is hell: they can’t ask the money back from drivers, so they lose a lot of money on fraud vs their profit on regular transactions. The driver fee, the original payment, and the chargeback fee, and the potential payment commission bump.
The onus is on the merchant to avoid accepting fraudulent transactions, and if you want to contest a chargeback you better have some CSI level proof.
This is why most online shops will offer a money-back-no-questions-asked policy: they know you can get the money back one way or another, and it’s cheaper to just give it to you.
An insidious consequence of this is the price for this protection is amortised over all customers, in the end. Fraud is BIG business, and the money has to come from somewhere. Customers get angry when a merchant adds a CC surcharge, but they end up paying that surcharge anyway, it’s just not explicitly listed. And if you pay cash, you pay it too, without any of the protections. Cash payers subsidise CC holders.†
Long story short: don’t be nervous. Your card is safe. (Unless you’re on a different scheme with different rules, of course)
(This assumes regular payments without extra auth, like e.g. PIN or 3D Secure. Those rules differ slightly.)
†: to be completely fair: there are costs associated with cash, too.