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ReadersSpeak

Card brands scalded for Or this one about MOBE, a company that hooked Sha-
permissive approach ron Seckinger, who signed up for a $49 online business
class, but under intense sales pressure, soon depleted her
e wish to thank Becky Hua, a life savings. "But what Seckinger and thousands of other
payments industry customer MOBE customers didn't know—and Mastercard did—was
service rep, for sharing her that before she ever made her first purchase, six banks on
W individual perspective here: four continents had flagged MOBE for hundreds of alleg-
edly fraudulent transactions. Visa, too, was aware that
I was gratified to learn that the jaw-dropping article about irate customers had begun demanding their money back.
Visa and Mastercard's apparent laissez faire attitude to- Instead of forcing the company off their networks, Master-
ward known scammers has gotten the attention of Rep- card and Visa kept facilitating its business as it and other
resentative Peter Welch, D-Vt., and other lawmakers. The dubious merchants found new bank accounts—and new
article is "Two-Card Monte: Why Mastercard And Visa customers to prey on."
Rarely Shut Down Scammers Who Are Ripping Off Con-
sumers," by Rosalind Adams, a reporter, and Tom Warren, It's time Visa and Mastercard knock known bad actors
an investigations correspondent. BuzzFeed published the off their networks and keep them off rather than pass the
article on May 18 at https://bit.ly/3vpaHlm. buck by fining acquiring banks that pass the fines on to
criminals, who consider them a mere cost of doing busi-
What's news to me may not be news to others. I'll just re- ness.
lay a couple of points that stuck in my craw, like this one: Your thoughts?
"When consumers get scammed, it's a bank that has to pay
them back. Mastercard and Visa—unlike [their] competi- Visa and Mastercard declined interviews but did issue
tors American Express and Discover, which operate on a statements linked to the article in question. What are the
different model—suffer no consequences. They have no best ways to make sure criminals cannot take advantage of
direct financial incentive to stop fraud, and they bear no payments networks for nefarious purposes? Please weigh
responsibility when it continues under their banner." in at greensheet@greensheet.com.