back to article Credit cards ripped from Madison Square Garden venues in year-long op

Carders have spent a year stealing an unknown number of credit card numbers from iconic New York City entertainment venue operator Madison Square Garden, after breaching payment card processing systems. Madison Square Garden disclosed the breach and said it only impacted customers who paid for food, drink or merchandise in …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Madison Square Garden disclosed the breach and said it only impacted customers who paid for food, drink or merchandise in person at its venues. Online ticket and merchandise purchases did not expose customers.

    That's a fairly pathetic attempt at claiming that it isn't as bad as it looks. A year long hack not only represents a God-awful amount of data but also speaks volumes about the quality of their security audits - generously assuming they had any, of course.

    I'm amazed it really took a year's worth of card fraud reporting to map it back to there as well, that's not a very positive story for card companies either.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm amazed it really took a year's worth of card fraud reporting to map it back to there

      Well thats assuming that the people in charge of Madison Square Garden weren't spending that year denying they had any problems.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not a surprise..

    Since the Trump vote I think it's safe to assume that trying to impose remembering a 4 digit code on a generous part of the population might be a challenge.

    On the plus side, at least that means the BANKS still have the liability (because that's the bait-and-switch they pulled on card holders when they introduced chipped cards over here), so maybe they're not that silly after all..

  3. Valeyard

    American and meg stripe..

    It's crazy doing anything with a card there. Even the subway ticket machines let you just swipe for your tickets with no pin etc required, and you hand it to every waiter etc to take away and do the transaction unattended

    We brought a card which gave very good conversion rates solely for the trip and cancelled it once we got back, it's the only way to pay for anything in the US..

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: American and meg stripe..

      Same experience here. I don't understand the american obsession with doing anything by credit card. Shirley, it is the least safe and cost efficient way of paying for your goods??

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: American and meg stripe..

        As mentioned above, it's only because the banks still eat the loss, and about the worst you have to do is spend 10 minutes on the phone with them for full reimbursement and a new card. They won't fight with you over the loss - even they know how shit the whole current system is. Of course this won't last. The instant they can make it your fault and refuse to reimburse, they will.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: American and meg stripe..

          Not entirely true.

          I had my debit card skimmed locally (in the NE US) right before I left on a month long trip to New Zealand. I suspect that they overhead me discussing travel plans and knew they would have a decent window of opportunity.

          Even though my card is set up to notify of any and all use, the first I heard was an email from a rewards account congratulating me on using my debit card at a restaurant chain in Boston. I logged on to my bank account and found over $1200 in charges over the 3 days that I was traveling to NZ.

          I was able to cancel the card and dispute all the charges (pretty easy to do when I had evidence I was literally 12,000 miles away at the time with the card in my possession.

          BUT, when I got back I had a mountain of envelopes in the post - each one containing a form to be filled in for each disputed charge - in my case, 26 of them.

          The I took the completed forms to the bank to be faxed (yes faxed) to the claims department I asked if they need me to help with the police report since it should be fairly easy to trace the people from our local grocery store (where the card had been skimmed) to Boston and the specific starbucks, restaurants, gas stations, etc. They told me they don't even file a police report for less than $5000 and even then most times there's zero follow up.

          Now I use apple pay at the grocery store and have pretty much stopped using cards anywhere I can avoid it - back to cash for me.

      2. CustardGannet

        "the least safe and cost efficient way"

        ...see also : US Foreign Policy.

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