When you own a company specialising in online payments, the constant threat of hackers and phishing schemes is an inescapable part of the job description. So it’s hard not to experience schadenfreude in the fact that PayPal CEO David Marcus’s credit card information got swiped recently and taken on a bit of a shopping spree. Oh, sweet irony.
Marcus tweeted about the problem earlier today, noting that the skimming probably happened sometime during his recent visit to the UK.
My card (with EMV chip) got skimmed while in the UK. Ton of fraudulent txns. Wouldn’t have happened if merchant accepted PayPal…
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) February 10, 2014
The card had an EMV chip, which is supposedly more secure than the magnetic strip currently found in most US credit cards. So naturally, Marcus took the opportunity to plug PayPal’s admittedly strong security measures. Of course, that doesn’t mean PayPal has been entirely without its own missteps.
The only way this could have been better? If the credit card had belonged to the CEO of a certain, now notorious chain store. [USA Today]