UKC

Just heard a friend enthusing about these. What does the UKC conclave think?

If you don't want to buy a wallet a "SKIMGUARD" card will do the same job. It's credit card size RFID protector that fits inside your existing wallet. I found the RFID protected wallets a bit cumbersome compared to my minimalist "Trove" wallet.

Al

Who do you know who’s been compromised by not having one?

Would you know though? 2 years ago someone tried to use my card details to buy a load of perfume and expensive trainers and the shop flagged it as not matching my spending profile (I had never used the shop John Lewis) and blocked it then found my number and rang me. 

Was that due to RFID, cloned in another shop, a altered cash machine, a rummage through my bin? There is no way of knowing and an anti RFID wallet is a sensible precaution. 

In my case it was probably a compromised cash machine, I later found out that the one I used had been compromised a few times before. 

I reckon, with no statistical backing or research whatsoever, that in most places your chances of having money nicked by an RFID skimmer are pretty slim. Given that the amount of money that can potentially be stolen is pretty limited and that banks will probably refund you for any scam charges that you notice and query, I think a special wallet is probably unnecessary.

Maybe they'd be more worthwhile if you never check your bank statements, and might therefore miss fraudulent charges, but I reckon anyone who's paranoid enough to buy a special wallet is probably also checking their statement.

Personally, I like being able to tap my wallet on things to pay without the mild inconvenience of digging out my card. Though my current wallet turns out to have the best of both worlds by blocking signals through the outside of the wallet but allowing them through the internal dividers, so I can just flip it open to tap it on a contactless machine. (I only keep one contactless card in it for this reason.)

Well, a friend of a friend. But I could still be the first person I know who gets done.

Or get a few more cards.  Barrier wouldn't work at ski resort since pass was in pocket with credit card.

Pointless.  If fraud occurs on a contactless card it WILL be refunded (and billed back to the merchant) - that's the agreement under which cards are accepted without secondary verification.

Max spend on a single transaction is £30 so being expensive trainers and a load of perfume wouldn't be from contactless.

I cannot think of a single instance of a bank card being cloned off RFID, best I can think of is using a handheld scanner to charge £30 but then they have to be registered to a business. Finally when you pay with contactless the onus is on the bank to prove it was you that made the charge.

I was about to add exactly this, have you ever tried to open an rfid door while having another card in with the door one. 

Cheers

Toby

I got given one of these as a freebie in a conference pack. Stuck my main credit card in it while on holiday, but that's about it.

Otherwise, I'm of the opinion that it's very unlikely to happen through a wallet with several other cards in there and the other safeguards mentioned above.

The only time I've been scammed on a credit card was about £200 at a shop in Nairobi back in the days when the receipts printed the whole card number and dates on them and it was manually keyed in again 2 days later. Easy to prove it wasn't me, as I had the boarding card from leaving the country in between the 2 transactions and it was refunded without quibble.

Thanks for all the answers. I'm inclined not to panic!

I think you are right not to panic. The whole point of the contactless system is that it cheaper for the banks to refund any fraudulent payments (which are limited to £30 a time) than to implement proper security.

You've also got to get really close to the skimmer - in reality, being in a crowd is the only place someone would get away with doing it on a regular basis without being noticed.  A criminal with skimmer could probably do well at a busy nightclub bar, but only one night.

I understand that cash machine skimming is very common and growing, portable skimmers probably less so.

Al

Let's see...

Let R be cost of RFID wallet: let's say £20 (there are various options)

Let L be likelihood of losing money through RFID card fraud: let's say 5%, that's 0.05

Let c be likely cash loss in the event of theft: £0 (you'll get it refunded, unless you don't notice it has happened)

Let t be likely time loss in the event of theft: let's say and hour or so to report and reclaim

Let v be value of an hour to you: dunno, let's say it's £50

Average cost to you of RFID theft = L*(c+(t*v)) = 0.05*£50 = £2.50

Average value to you of getting an RFID wallet = (L*(c+(t*v)))-R = £-17.5 (a loss of £17.50)

It doesn't appear even close to being worth getting an RFID wallet on the basis of the assumptions I've made above.

Feel free to play with the numbers or expand on the formula!

But cash machine skimming isn't based on compromising the RFID.  Typically it's a mag strip reader together with a concealed or camouflaged camera to record the PIN entry on the keypad.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/01/would-you-have-spotted-the-fraud/

In replay to Toby W:

Yup.  The place where I used to work had two different contactless card-operated entry systems: one for the building, and one for our office within the building.  I kept both cards in the same plastic ID card sleeve and they worked fine opening the different doors for me.  I suspect that this was either because they just ignored the card that wasn't registered on their database, or because they did actually use sufficiently different protocols over the RFID to authenticate the cards that confusion couldn't arise.  RFID for contactless payments uses the same fundamental protocol for every contactless card, so putting multiple cards in one wallet can and does lead to confusion (often the "wrong" card being charged).

I have an RFID wallet, but only because my old wallet was starting to fall apart.  When shopping for a replacement it seemed that every wallet that I looked at was RFID anyway, so there wasn't even any incremental cost.

The thing is you don't just need a criminal with a card reader to skim £29.99 off passers by, you need a wantonly criminal service provider. One is tricky to deal with, the other isn't.

jk

Where did I say it was ?  I was merely pointing out that it was probably more prevalent.

Al

Can it be done though? I don't know. 

That's hassle though, check my bank statement, contact them, no doubt fill in a form or 2. I like a hassle free life as much as possible. 

I would not go out and specifically buy a new wallet but I go through one about every 3 to 4 years and when I changed last time I got an anti rfid one, same size and shape as a normal wallet but my card doesn't work in it. 

I like your approach. However, it doesn't take into account the hassle I get from Mrs Wilko every time I take out my current very tatty wallet. I might get a new one, and it might just be a RFID one and kill several birds with one stone.

I'd have thought that if you,re bothered you could achieve the same by cutting a bit of aluminium foil to the size of a £20 note then putting in your wallet on the outside of all the other notes.

Not that I'll be bothering.

People shouldn't waste their money.  Cards can't easily be cloned that way, it doesn't just give up your information like with magstripe.

People also seem to imagine a high powered reader charging £30 to each person crossing its path.  The money would never get beyond the merchant account that was being used and for £30 a time it likely wouldn't reach a worthwhile sum before automated fraud prevention systems would notice a suspicious pattern.

If you're still worried, as others have mentioned, having multiple cards together already does a good job confusing readers.

My Ridge Wallet is also quite minimalist (similar to Trove in a way?) and does block RFID. Almost any metal will block RFID, it's a bit cringy to see marketing like "made from RFID blocking materials".

FWIW, I wouldn't buy a new wallet for just RFID blocking. 

this thread put me in mind the hazard of old magnetic card passes back in the 80s.   I had two mag stripe passes, one for BAe Kingston on Thames and another for secondment to Weybridge.   Not long after being issued with the Weybridge magnetic card I discovered that my bank card wouldn't work any more.  Apparently I should have been warned to keep it away from bank cards.   It was an amazing card, as when I was told about this in the Weybridge canteen I found, in front of my colleagues at the table, that a knife was visibly attracted to the mag stripe and moved slightly!

I've just checked my statement and found a spurious debit. What happened was this: I walked up to the counter of a coffee shop at Bristol airport, and then changed my mind about getting coffee there. Presumably just at the moment when someone else was about to pay, so my card (in my wallet in my pocket) was detected preferentially over theirs and so I treated them to their coffee. A sort of unintended good deed for the day.

Anyway obviously this sort of thing will always be possible with contactless cards, but not that frequent so no, I can't be bothered with a special wallet and I'm sure the bank will sort it out in any case. 

When I read the topic I immediately thought of a car key wallet. I did get one of these, actually a pack of two from Aldi, as I park my car close to the front door and was in the habit of leaving the door key along with the car fob in the lock. Could save more than £30.