Credit Card Theft Impacts Ag Retail, Too
April 2, 2012 Late last week and earlier this week, you may have caught the news that credit card issuers Master Card and Visa reported that 1.5 million user numbers for their credit and debit card holders may have been “potentially compromised.” Luckily, cardholder names, addresses and Social Security numbers weren’t affected by the breach.
Still, in the technology age, credit card fraud is a huge problem. According to some statistics, improper use of credit card numbers costs U.S. consumers almost $1 billion per year. Put into simpler terms, this means that approximately 10 cents out of every $100 worth of credit card transactions is fraudulent.
For some ag retailers, particularly cooperatives that offer fuel to their customers, this can add up to some big losses. On a recent visit to one large Midwestern cooperative, I heard one manager talking about how his location was “missing” large amounts of diesel fuel from its storage tank recently. Suspecting some kind of fraudulent credit card scheme was involved, this manager and a few other employees stalked out their facility one evening. Sure enough, a large unrecognized tank truck pulled up to the cooperative pump after hours and started to fill up.
When confronted, this individual was caught with a set of stolen credit cards. “In the time it took us to stop the thief, he at pumped more than 156 gallons of diesel fuel into his truck by swiping these bogus cards,” said the manager.
Now obviously, there is no absolutely foolproof way to protect against this kind of credit card fraud. However, ag retailers need to do their best to safeguard their assets whenever possible, through diligence and paying attention to any suspicious individuals and credit card transactions. To not do so in an age when technology can be so quickly abused and used against us would be foolish.
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