kborn

Family back from PdC. Nephew notified a week ago someone using his credit card number. he used it twice - both times in pdc. today, email from sister, notified by credit card company someone using her credit card number. she used it once at Fly in pdc.

Diana

This same thing happened to us a few years ago in PDC.

We used a cc during a trip there, and then we received notification that our card had been used to buy $250 in groceries two weeks after we returned.

We also narrowed it down to one place on 5th Ave. where we had used it.

We've since been back to PDC several times, but don't use a cc there now except to pay for the hotel.

We pay by cash or traveler's check.

Ryberg

Seems like there are a lot of these reports coming up lately, so for what it's worth, I'm reposting this in a couple of places.

At least one study (not just a report drawing on anecdotal evidence) presented by a Canadian business research source and drawing on an American source (so not a Mexican entity trying to play down or whitewash a problem) found that

"In comparison to the fraud rates in the US and Canada, MEXICO'S FRAUD RATE IS MUCH LOWER [emphasis added]. The US fraud rate is 1% of credit card sales, followed by Canada with 0.02%, and finally Mexico with less than 0.001% of total credit card sales."

I believe if you do the math on that one you'll get 1,000 times the incidence of fraud in the U.S. as in Mexico.

The same report also includes other interesting results, such as

"Fraud in Mexico City is down by 60% since the new [anti-fraud] legislation in 1999"

and

"Mexico has the lowest MasterCard fraud average in the Latin American region, 0.05%."

And for those travelling to the Mayan Riviera region, you may wish to note that according to one table, over 1/3 of credit card fraud in this country takes place in Mexico City, while only 6% takes place in the state of Quintana Roo.

You could look it up:
from Strategis report "Credit Card Industry in Mexico" at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/inter...gr105995e.html

Things may well be getting worse. However they're probably getting worse in the States an Canada on this point, as well, and the differences in rate of fraud are impressive.

FWIW...

Steve

JeanH

I don't know if it helps or not, but I always notify my credit card company when I'm leaving the country and for what dates I'll be gone.

I forgot to do that in Costa Rica once and my card was denied after it's second use in a couple of days (it was a Visa I don't use very often in the states).

Ryberg

Good reminder from Jean. Don't forget you can (and probably should) notify your card issuer(s) if you anticipate a period of increased use yourself, or less use, or use in regions of your own country where there's normally none (if you're travelling there), etc. Give 'em more info and they'll be able to catch problems more quickly if/when they do arise, if not stop them from occurring in the first place.

Steve