can a cashier steal your credit card number?

[flat-top]

So I'm at Kmart last night buying $25 worth of stuff for the new house...

as soon as I ran my credit card, the cashier pulled out her smart phone and started texting.

Can a smartphone pick up credit card numbers while being processed?

[SiggyZ]

If you start seeing fraudulent charges on your statement, dispute them and cancel the card.

[SouthernBornThriller]

Did you hand her the card?

I worked as a cashier in a grocery store for roughly 2 years in high school and I'll admit...I could've stolen just about any customer's card number I wanted. All I would've had to do is hit cancel once or twice when they swiped it to convince them their card was screwed up and I needed to type it in. Customer hands me card. I type it in the number on the register with one hand and on my phone, calculator, or pen/paper with the other. Jot down the expiration date, security code, and maybe even forge the signature for good measure all while making small talk and bitching about always having problems with [insert card brand here] to keep them distracted and said customer would've never been the wiser.

That said, there's no way to do it without physically holding the card in your hand(that I know of...been out of that loop for a few years now), so if she didn't have it...it was probably a typical teenage girl moment. All the ones I worked with texted constantly while they worked.

[flat-top]

she never handled it...i just had to swipe twice...

ok, cool...that's what I thought

[Spaz]

they can, but only use it to capture a picture with...

[Zapper2003]

Ive heard of 'scanners' that pick up those credit cards that you just 'touch n go' with. Not sure what ever happened with that.

[excrider121]

At the end of the night, I'm required to run a batch on the credit card machines at work to document the credit card sales for the day. The batch prints out all the card numbers with expiration dates and gives me a report of how much was processed by which card type.

Yes, it is deffinately possible for a cashier to steal your card number.

[shady milkman]

to answer your post...no not like that..a smart phone will not be able to see anything..especially considering that most scanners are wired not wireless. Even then it is encrypted pretty well..they can steal it with scanners or as the others have said

[DrMilhouse]

those cards that have the blink logo can be picked up using the rf scanners that read them. I saw a news broadcast on that recently. There's nothing like that on any phone yet though. There is an app on the iphone that will let you take credit cards via the phone. There's a device that's plugged into the phone to swipe the card to make that happen.