I appears Newegg is now cooperating with VISA, to help coerce customers into agreeing to the anti-consumer Verified By VISA contract.
You know what they want you to believe? That, if you're defrauded, if your credit card information is stolen and misused, that it's YOUR FAULT, and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. That's right, kids, that's the agreement they want you to sign.
The Verified By Visa Terms of Use contract states,
"You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password, registration data and other verification information established by you with Verified by Visa, and all activities that occur using your password, registration data or other verification information supplied to or established by you with Verified by Visa."
That is an intentional misrepresentation of facts. Worse, it's contrary to your rights under the federal law (Fair Credit Billing Act).
Anybody familiar with the internet understands that, probably within a day or two of their going live, hackers will have copied Verified by VISA form pages, so that they could reproduce those pages on phish sites. At this point, if somebody is going to fall for a phish, it's likely their VbV password would be compromised as easily as their credit card information. VbV doesn't change the nature of the problem. It's not more "protection" in that regard.
Further, the Verified by Visa information is DESIGNED to be entered into web forms, and transmitted to web servers, at which point, that information is, obviously, no longer under the customer's control. After that point, the VbV data is AT LEAST as likely to be compromised as a result of a security problem on the vendor's own web server, or due to the activities of one of their employees, as it is to be compromised by anything the end user did. Again, VbV doesn't change the nature of the problem. If you've sent your VbV information to another server even ONE time, that is no longer information you control.
So, why would a big corporation like VISA want to do this, use their monopolistic leverage to try to coerce customers into accepting "sole responsibility" for the whole Verified by Visa transaction? It's simple. They don't like the current state of the law, so they think it will be more profitable to create some confusion. They want to introduce one more layer of verbiage and FUD in the minds of consumers, so those customers will be even less likely to have a clear understanding of their rights when there's a security problem. The new default answer will be: any security problem must have been the customer's fault.
Whether it's legally binding or not (it's not), VISA hopes to coerce customers into accepting a secondary contract, on top of the (federally regulated) cardholder agreement, which is designed to evade (or erode) the intent of the FCBA. (And now Newegg wants to help them do it, probably in exchange for some sort of compensation.)
I recommend not paying any attention to the silly Verified by Visa smoke screen --keep your eye on the ball. This is the law as it applies to credit card users. If you think your credit card information has been compromised, and the card was used for fraudulent transactions, you're required to notify the credit card company within a timely fashion. If you do that, your liability for fraudulent transactions will not exceed $50. Period. There are no other obligations. No other hoops to jump through. No other contracts to sign.
I tell you what, if this happens again --if this looks like it's a new policy, and not a mistake --if I go to Newegg, place an order using my credit card number, which is on file, using the billing address which is on file for that credit card, using the same shipping address as the billing address, using the same email address I've used for ten years, and I STILL immediately get a harassing phone call from the "fraud department" at VISA (i.e. because I haven't signed up for Verified by VISA), then I am going to be one resentful and determined son-of-a-gun, and I will name Newegg specifically in my complaint to the Federal Trade Commission.
Another online vendor tried similarly irritating Verified by Visa tricks with me last year, and it left such a bad impression that I haven't ordered anything from them since. I do not appreciate getting jerked around just because I try to use my VISA card in the normal way. If you are an online store, DO NOT accept my payment, but then try to jerk me around because of VbV issues --gfy. That could be the last time we do business.
This review was modified by its author, HarveyG, on
11/1/09 11:26 AM.