How to protect your contactless card from scammers on public transport

By a Staff Writer on Feb 19, 2016 12:00PM

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The trouble with making something super quick and easy to pay with is that it can also make fraud quick and super easy too.

Spotted by an eagle-eyed Facebook user (originally in Russia), the scam allows thieves to extract a quick £30 (AU$60) from your pocket without you even noticing, with the aid of an easily available card reader, and some custom software.

This matches with research Which undertook last year, where the company was able to steal card information, and order products worth AU$6000 online.

So this guy was spotted wandering round with a Point of Sale (POS) device. All he has to do is key in a price less than ...

-- Posted by Paul Jarvis on Saturday, 13 February 2016

How to disable contactless payments on your debit/credit card

Don't go cutting up all your contactless cards just yet though, there are ways of neutering the threat before it happens. The easiest way is to block the RFID chip.

You can do this by mutilating your card, but we wouldn't recommend it (your bank probably wouldn't be too happy either) - far easier to line the card, blocking the contactless support. You can do this a couple of ways: one is to line your wallet with tin foil.

Which found that this was effective in preventing contactless cards being read.

If you want something a little more classy than a wallet filled with foil, you can get customised card holders which block the contactless signal - also handy to avoid card clash on public transport systems, like with the Opal card in Sydney. A pack of three can be purchased for less than $10 on Amazon.

This article originally appeared at alphr.com

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