To swipe or not to swipe?
That is the question on my mind these days….
This spring, John Magill, Vice President of Government Affairs at CUNA, wrote a blog* about the expense and headache credit unions and their members have incurred due to data breaches. I bet he didn’t realize how many there would be this year since his article, and I recently heard somewhere, that as many as 100 retailers may have been “compromised” this summer.
I may have to start counting on both hands how many retail data breaches there have been since November 2013, and all affecting us since the beginning of 2014 with Target.
I feel bad for my credit union when they call me and say they have to cancel my card(again!).
Our teenage sons open their “first–ever” checking account and they have to understand “identity theft”, be finger printed, scanned and re-checked again before they walk out the door and only with a debit card, and PIN number-no checks!
(Note to Mom- all my friends have a card and no one writes checks any more!)
So, I’d rather write a check …..
if it meant my account and personal information won’t be at risk for identity theft,
if it means the retailer won’t have to pay a fee,
AND if it means my credit union won’t be out the $5.68 to replace my card AND for all the overhead the credit union suffers by taking care of the members (Thank you!).
I will have to dig in my purse to see if I even have a check any more.
(Most gas stations and retailers don’t want your check either!),
As an exclusive provider of credit union direct marketing, we take great pride in our credit union community and understand all the nuances that make a credit union successful. Very rarely we have a request to produce a checking account campaign these days, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s time again to promote the good old-fashioned checking account …..and to dust off my checkbook and start writing checks again.
Magill is executive vice president of Government Affairs at the Credit Union National Association
