Credit card fraud

I just received an alert from a well-intentioned friend, warning me of a credit card scam doing the rounds, whereby people purporting to represent credit card companies, and who by whatever means already have obtained your card number, phone to get you to disclose the security number on the back of the card.

If you are worried by this scam, and feel there is a chance that you might disclose your number upon request by someone calling you and saying they work for a bank or credit institution, then send me by email your full name and address, along with your credit card number and the aforementioned security code, and I'll patch a security widget on the world wide internet that will ensure your details remain entirely confidential.

And if by chance these fraudsters do call you up, play clever, and rather than hanging up on them, give them a false number. That way they'll attempt a transaction and so leave an extra trace by which they hopefully might end up getting caught.

The more of these fraudsters that get hoisted by their own petard, the better.