Bad Karma? PayPal President Reports Stolen Credit Card Just weeks after a claim that PayPal compromised the credit-card data of one of its users, the company's president claimed his card got skimmed.
By Geoff Weiss
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
In a karmic twist, just weeks after PayPal allegedly helped to compromise the credit-card data of one of its users, the company's president, David Marcus, has now reported his very own theft.
The PayPal chief tweeted on Monday, "My card (with EMV chip) got skimmed while in the UK."
Marcus also continued to deny PayPal's involvement in the recent incident in which the company allegedly divulged the last four credit-card numbers of the California web developer Naoki Hiroshima, who was being extorted by hackers for his twitter handle, @N.
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"That actually didn't happen," Marcus shot back to one commenter who raised the issue.
But nobody, it seems, is immune from the recent wave of hackings that has inundated thousands of consumers, leading retailers and web companies nationwide including Target, Neiman Marcus, GoDaddy, Michael's and Yahoo.
Marcus added that his information had been stolen by hackers "at the hotel I was staying at. They then cloned it and went on a shopping spree."
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Of note is that Marcus's card featured EMV technology (a small chip that generates new codes for every transaction), which is pervasive throughout the rest of the world. Though many believe EMV could be the solution to America's recent hacking woes, Marcus' incident goes to show that no card is entirely infallible.
Ever the marketer, Marcus used the incident as an opportunity to promote his company. "Obfuscating card data online, on mobile, and now more and more offline remains one of PayPal's strongest value props," he tweeted.
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