The Return of Popular Electronics Magazine

That's why I keep one credit card that I don't allow the limit to increase beyond $1K.

For suspicious sites I use only that particular card.

Interestingly, I've only had a single card compromised in all the years I've had credit cards... in 2009 I had a B of A debit card "tested" in Paris... they ran 2 separate ?1.00 test charges to apparently verify the account number, but I spotted it immediately... it stood out like a sore thumb as a strange small amount.

I've also had a cell phone cloned... maybe 15 years ago, after a trip to the Bay Area. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson
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Yes, have the Dec issue right here $7.50

Cheeers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

I'll bet it is $19.95 in Australia if you can find it, or a lot more.

That is why the digital version makes a lot of sense for international delivery.

Cheers Don...

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Don McKenzie

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Reply to
Don McKenzie

It's good value really, when I subscribed for the online edition they were giving access to all the issues up to date in the archives for download.

Cheers ....... Rheilly P

Reply to
Rheilly Phoull

No problem, just use a "one time" card number.

bill

Reply to
Bill Martin

On 20/01/2011 5:10 AM, Don McKenzie wrote: ...

year, with world wide possibilities, and no shipping of custom problems, and those silly extra import costs. Locals don't even have to pay VAT, GST, or state sales taxes. You just download a PDF. How simple is that? 19 Bucks!

Don, they have been bought by Elektor last year - bye bye US$ 19.00 / year subscriptions, I think I've paid just over AU$60 for two years couple of weeks ago when our dollar was possibly stronger than US. Don't remember now but a year could be US$35.

ago, but it was never taken up. I felt world wide distribution at a reasonable price, could make a lot of difference to the mag surviving. At least worth a try. After all, how much extra is it going to cost to raise it up the flag pole and give it a flutter?

They do have "web" version but its almost a scam. You save about AU$10 a year comparing to paper magazine (which is close to AU$80 I think), you get articles published on the www but not as pdf (so not so easy to save) and you miss all other info (ads etc). Funny thing is that a paper magazine comes out just before the 1st of the months, the web articles are published progresively from about

5th till 25th of the month starting with the crapppiest one, the most interesting one appears last. Funny, I can go today to many mags websites to find out what to expect in February, on SC website you won't see all articles from January yet... Whoever came with this idea was either a dipstick or actively wanted to discourage people from web subscriptions. Very weird considering that when you do a paper magazine the electronic edition does cost very little and they could make real money.

It is simply dirt cheap. And if they aren't making money, then they would have stopped doing this.

It is cheap and probably they still make money, they don't have printing and distribution costs for PDF subscribers yet they count for advertising.

If Elektor bought them they must have been making money. Pity Elektor got gready and changed the prices.

Tom

Reply to
Tom

that from their own resources, then they are

USD a year, with world wide possibilities, and

s don't even have to pay VAT, GST, or state

ears ago, but it was never taken up. I felt

ence to the mag surviving. At least worth a

g pole and give it a flutter?

Its Australia, just look at the ways businesses here are run - Harvey Norman and co gave a good example of this a couple of weeks ago. Then you have dinosaurs like Telstra amongst others including the movie and music industries...... Just charge as high as possible, be quite arrogant about it, ignore overseas competition or the internet and drive customers to the pirate version, or overseas reasonably priced product.

SC is just following the same broken model in my opinion. After all it has worked for them since the 80's and before and always will. If it was an extra $10-20 or so pa for those that already get the hard copy, to get the online PDF ediiton for example, I think a lot would take it up.

rice. It is simply dirt cheap. And if they

=3D=3D=3D

Reply to
kreed

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

We had a card number used recently, my daughter's at college in Gainesville, apparently there is a lot of card theft going on there. Someone made a purchase $90.00 purchase at a chain drugstore and then got a $200.00 steak dinner. The credit card company called us to verify, they seemed pretty sure it was fraud. They had new cards to us in about 9 days. No cost to me. On a different occasion my ever frugal wife was getting gas and stopped at $1.00 because she saw a sign that gave a discount for cash. I immediately got a call from the card company. I was not aware of her transaction, I told the company I would call them back, I called her she told me about the $1.00 charge and I let the card company know. Then another time she bought some business equipment (about $2000) and the company called to make sure it was legit, again I didn't know, she verified a large purchase and again I let he card company know. I always thank them for being on the job, and checking for fraudulent charges. Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Nonsense. The CC details go to Amazon Payments, which I'm sure have most of our credit card details already. The project creator only sees the names and amounts (and selected 'reward').

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

My understanding is that for all credit cards, you're *never* liable for more than something like $50 in fraudulent charges so long as you report the problem to the credit card company withing 48 hours of the point where *you* become aware of it.

Because of this law most of them don't even bother asking you for that first $50 either.

I've never had a credit card used fraudulently, but a small handful of times per year Chase will decide that something looks "suspicious" and turn off the card until I call their 1-800 number and verify the recent charges (both real and attempted). :-( This is really quite annoying... especially when, while you're on hold, they tell you how they're doing this to protect *you*! Yeah, right!

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Yes, I have a Chase card also and it can be bleedin' annoying when this happens. And then checking with the vendor to see whether the transaction really went through, and do you need to re-order XYZ or not. On the other hand, probably better that than their not being suspicious enough.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Check with your "personal banker". My Chase account doesn't ask unless charge is > $3K.

IIRC (been a very long time when I set those things, like 15 years), this is something you set yourself when you opened account. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

JK > My understanding is that for all credit cards, JK > you're *never* liable for more than something JK > like $50 in fraudulent charges so long as you JK > report the problem to the credit card company JK > withing 48 hours of the point where *you* JK > become aware of it.

If somebody fraudulently charges crap on YOUR card, why should YOU be stuck paying even the first $50 of that?

I thought that $50 was if you LOST your card and somebody racks up charges on it. In that case, YOU failed to keep the card secure.

But if you keep your card secure and some retailer has an unscrupulous employee who skims the number and racks up charges, why should you be responsible for even one dime?

Reply to
Greegor

I have been a credit card merchant, and selling on the web since 1993, so I believe I have seen it all.

If someone challenges a credit card transaction that has been placed through my Dontronics shopping cart, then I must provide solid proof that the purchase was made by the customer. The credit card issuer will usually only accept the customers signature as proof of the transaction.

Being an on-line order, the merchant never gets the signature, however if proof of ID is requested and received by the merchant, and there has been an exchange of emails to do this, then the customers challenge may be invalid.

The customer has a full 6 months to make any challenge to a transaction. After that time, no challenge can be made. There is no dollar limit.

This applies to me as an Australian merchant. It may vary in other countries.

We get people order web software downloads using a credit card, and a free email address, such as yahoo. The first thing we do is challenge them, unless they are a previous customer, or pay by another method. In many cases they don't answer our emails, so we refund the funds back to the card owner and cancel the order.

Visa and MasterCard world wide, have a security measure that merchants are starting to adopt. It is called "Verify By Visa" and "SecureCode" respectively. It requires a password for all on line purchases. To read more about this security measure please go to:

formatting link

This is a bit of an inconvenience to set up, but it works great. No one can use your card unless they have your password.

Cheers Don...

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Don McKenzie

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Reply to
Don McKenzie

You may well be correct; I'm definitely not up on the details.

I imagine that if it turns out you might still be liable for that first $50, it would only be because many people who *did* lose their card and knew they'd be responsible for it would never admit as much.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

We had our cards tapped twice in the last couple of years. The second time was the same card, but after we had new cards with new numbers issued! At least once, we were able to trace the purchase to some small town in Texas, but as far as we know, they never even tried to track him/her down. Just took the charges off our bill.

We kept trying to figure out where they got the card the second time. it wasn't a card we use very often, and out big suspicion was that Virgin Mobile might have been hacked. That was one of the two place that we had actually used that card, and we knew the folks at the other place we had used it!

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie E.

Suppose you do something risky, perhaps inadvertently, such as an online purchase from a merchant without a secure website? I could see a lot of potential gray areas.

It's in their interests to have the customer exhibit at least a bit of discretetion as to which slots they stick their credit card into. OTOH, they make money on every transaction so CC promiscuity is in their interests too.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

I believe around here the rules say something like, liable for first

200$ if the PIN code is used. liable for first 1500$ if you don't notify the cc company that someone got you PIN the code or by "Gross negligence" enabled the abuse. Liable for full amount if you give card and PIN to some and should have know they would abuse it, or didn't notify cc company that you lost card as quick as possible.

So basically if you have the physical card and/or noone knows the PIN it is the banks problem

When I had my cc abused, I immediately got my money back and just had to fill out a form describing the case, if I knew the company etc.

At the end of the form was a note that I could report it to the police if I wanted to I assume that means the CC company doesn't do it automatically, guess it isn't worth the effort

-Lasse

Reply to
langwadt

The problem I am having is tyrying to cancel a card. There were several false charges made on a gasoline credit card (hint: anglo- dutch) that I rarely used any more. The charges were so obviously false that the card's security people called me about them. Then a while later my son's wallet was stolen, in which he had a copy of the card so he could buy gas for his car. I called the company, paid off the balance, and told them to cancel the card. I am still getting ,monthly statements with niggling little charges.

Reply to
Richard Henry

On 1/20/2011 3:20 PM, Don McKenzie wrote: (snip)

I tried it and the Web site said my card was not eligible. I called my card issuer as suggested and they said the program for Visa had been discontinued.

Cheers, John

Reply to
John - KD5YI

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