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fabafter50 said
I wouldn't be in any hurry to get this card based on my experience.
I was approved for the card and used it in the U.S. in August.
On August 22nd received both a call and an email notifying me of 4 likely fraudulent purchases on my card (from U.K., Russia)
I immediately called back and confirmed that the 4 purchases totally over $800 were NOT mine, and the card had been in my possession at all times. I was assured a dispute would be issued and the charges would be cleared from my account before my next statement. I checked my account online on Sept. 6th and the charges were still showing so I called customer service and reiterated what had happened. I was assured it just takes a bit for the charges to disappear but would definitely not be on my next statement. I got the statement on the 17th and they were still there. After an hour and a half of phone calls to three different areas, dispute dept., fraud department and customer service, it was determined that the charge dispute was never initiated. Someone dropped the ball bigtime.
I had to file the dispute myself almost a month after they called me to tell me about the fraud and ensure me they were looking after it. After talking to the three departments it was clear to me that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I'm still waiting for these charges to be removed, and have to wait 15 days for them to send a letter that I have to return before they will. Snail mail. Seriously????
I have no confidence in this credit card company and will be cancelling it as soon as this disaster is sorted out.
I just got a Brim card which serves my purpose perfectly.  

I think it would be pretty hard to blame the CC Co for your card getting compromised. The onus is on the merchant to make sure that terminals are not tampered with, and no one is immune. Skimming technology has come to the point of inserting a paper thin piece of plastic that is barely detectable unless you examine it very closely. That is where tap has the advantage. I am not aware of any POS tech that can read tap at the terminal, although it can be intercepted by an RFID reader just by walking by someone trying to steal your info. Nothing is 100% safe and consumers must also do their due diligence (I now have a RFID proof wallet).
I noticed a pending charge from Europe a few years back, and notified Tang M/C immediately. Still had to jump thru their hoops and it took weeks to get it reversed. Can't say I blame them... would want to make sure it was legitimate before I issued refunds for thousands of dollars. DO blame them for letting a single charge go thru from the other side of the world when I hadn't advised them of any travel plans.
Do hope they upgrade to tap sooner than later though. Lot of room for improved features, but not regretting using HT card at all. It has saved me a lot in ForEx fees, which is the ONLY reason I have it.

I'm curious where you got your RFID wallet, Rick. The few things I've seen have been heavy/cumbersome. Did you find something that doensnt weigh you down?

Loonie, they also sell those wallets at the CAA Travel Store; there's one in Toronto on Lawrence Avenue near Don Mills Road. (I don't have one--but I've seen them there)

It would be nice if we had some solid reason to believe this blog poster.
The arrogant tone argues against her content.

Thanks for the location tips, Rick and dentgal.

Top It Up said

REALLY ... heard of any outbreak of card carriers being ripped off by scoundrels waving around RFID/NFC devices - the classic place for them would be on crowded public transport YET the silence of such occurrences is deafening.  

Although I work in IT and not a cyber security expert by any means, but I do believe it’s possible close NFC readers can acquire your data. It is my understanding, that even if they were successful at getting your confidential data they can’t do anything with this data, which is why the chances of this happening is so unlikely. An individual would have to be extremely motivated to want to spend countless hours (weeks and at times months) to duplicate the data on a dummy card because of the large algorithmic requirements that the card goes through each and every time it needs to authenticate it to be activated, that is, used.

Getting people’s encrypted data is possible, it’s the decrypting part that’s the challenge, but I agree that it is far more likely to happen at rigged POS terminals or ATMs but even then it has to be authenticated when being placed on a dummy card - in laymen’s terms, you can’t just “copy and paste” the data - it won’t work.

Here’s an example of riggered ATMs

Again, not 100% sure, but it is my understanding.

Rick said

I think it would be pretty hard to blame the CC Co for your card getting compromised. The onus is on the merchant to make sure that terminals are not tampered with, and no one is immune. Skimming technology has come to the point of inserting a paper thin piece of plastic that is barely detectable unless you examine it very closely. That is where tap has the advantage. I am not aware of any POS tech that can read tap at the terminal, although it can be intercepted by an RFID reader just by walking by someone trying to steal your info. Nothing is 100% safe and consumers must also do their due diligence (I now have a RFID proof wallet).
I noticed a pending charge from Europe a few years back, and notified Tang M/C immediately. Still had to jump thru their hoops and it took weeks to get it reversed. Can't say I blame them... would want to make sure it was legitimate before I issued refunds for thousands of dollars. DO blame them for letting a single charge go thru from the other side of the world when I hadn't advised them of any travel plans.
Do hope they upgrade to tap sooner than later though. Lot of room for improved features, but not regretting using HT card at all. It has saved me a lot in ForEx fees, which is the ONLY reason I have it.  

I didn't blame the credit card company for the compromise in the slightest. It's happened on other cards as well.
I do blame them for the way they handled it, or in this case handled nothing.
Any other card I've had that is aware of fraudulent charges either by notifying me, as Home Trust did, or by me notifying them, has wiped them off the card immediately and then investigated it. I still have over $800 of fraudulent charges sitting on my account for 6 WEEKS!!! Most disorganized credit card company I've ever dealt with. All departments, fraud, disputes and customer service are completely separate entities and none know what the other has done, or in my case, not done. That is the issue.

fabafter50 said
I didn't blame the credit card company for the compromise in the slightest. It's happened on other cards as well.
I do blame them for the way they handled it, or in this case handled nothing.
Any other card I've had that is aware of fraudulent charges either by notifying me, as Home Trust did, or by me notifying them, has wiped them off the card immediately and then investigated it. I still have over $800 of fraudulent charges sitting on my account for 6 WEEKS!!! Most disorganized credit card company I've ever dealt with. All departments, fraud, disputes and customer service are completely separate entities and none know what the other has done, or in my case, not done. That is the issue.  

See your point Fab. I guess you can't expect Cadillac service from a used car dealership.They are a smaller player and, no doubt, they have their shortcomings. One being their alerts. Tang and RBC will text me while I am still standing at the till, HT notifies me when they actually post the transaction 3 or 4 days later. What's the point? But notifying Tang of a fraudulent charge did nothing to prevent it from going through either.
If the charge has been on for more than a statement period, I presume you haven't paid it and/or any interest? That would be a deal breaker.

Speak of the devil... small charge today (declined) from a jewelry store in Brasil. Someone testing (I assume) to see if it works before running up some more significant charges. Wondering, how it was compromised? Only used it at the same places I have ever used it, (MAJOR retailers) since I got it and linked as a payment method with PayPal and a couple others since February. Maybe HT does have security issues. Will contact them tomorrow and keep a close eye on all my CC accounts.
Going off grid is looking more and more appealing.

Thanks, User230. I've got lots of ideas now, and eventually I will get around to following up. It can't hurt.

Rick, I wonder if HT's inability to let you set your own pass code might be indicative of an issue for them. Seems antiquated. With most banks or CCs or whatever, one of the first things you'd do if there were a problem would be to change your pass code, but they won't let you - as I understand it. I don't have one of their cards, but, if I did, I think I'd be dropping it like a hot potato at this point. Who needs the hassle?
We haven't had any problems (yet!) with our Rogers card, but it's not our main card and we don't use it a lot.

Rick said
Speak of the devil... small charge today (declined) from a jewelry store in Brasil. Someone testing (I assume) to see if it works before running up some more significant charges. Wondering, how it was compromised?

When you use your card to pay for something, the validation information is stored within the vendor's payment records. So once you use your card to buy a hammer at Home Depot in Blattsville, Manitoba or buy a pair of pants at Walmart in Bonchance, Quebec, your card data is now out there in borderless cyberspace. So if the Home Depot accounting records get hacked, a whole slew of valid card info (including yours) goes out into the wild where it gets posted/sold to whoever has a mind to buy it. This is exactly how my MBNA card data was leaked out twice over a 3 year stretch. One time was without any consequence to me, but the second time was on a Boxing Day and the lowlifes managed to get almost $3 grand charged to it before it was killed.

So maybe a month or three or more goes by and nothing happens. Then, as you noticed, a typical MO is to ping the card for a small purchase first to see if it's still valid before piling on until the anti-fraud algorithms kick in and shut down the card. Some of those algos are better and faster than others, but in your case a small purchase on a Canadian card out of the blue in Brazil (especially without a travel advisory already on file) would appear sufficiently suspicious for it to be rejected straight up. I say kudos to the card issuer for that.

My point being, don't blame the card issuers, their systems are generally quite secure. OTOH, the retailers you patronize who have your payment info are usually pretty soft targets in comparison, and that's where the mass data thefts are occurring.