Credit card users may think twice before making their next purchase.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard credit card accounts were hacked on March 30 via Global Payments Inc., a processing company that handles the transactions between consumers and credit card entities.
The identity of the hackers is not known, and it is not clear whether any fraudulent transactions have actually occurred.
According to the Nilson Report, a payments-industry newsletter, Global Payments was the seventh-largest “merchant acquirer” or transaction processor, in 2011. However, after this hack, Visa has removed the company from their list of processors, seemingly too late for some.
“I think that Visa should be on top of their transactions, and know what is happening with their customers,” said University of Maryland sophomore Samar Ayyub, a Visa card holder. “They should better protect their consumers…this stuff happens all too often.”
Another issue that resulted from the hack is the newfound knowledge that companies like Global Payments even exist. Most consumers believe that when they swipe their credit cards, Visa or MasterCard directly deals with their individual transaction, not knowing that their personal information is in a middle company’s hands.
“I didn’t even know these middle men existed,” said freshman Morgan Fecto, a Mastercard user.
And with more and more personal information being stored and accessed online, consumers like Fecto are a little more wary about what they release to the web.
“I might think twice now before giving information to the big world of technology,” says Fecto.