The risk of paying by card. Customers rarely know about it

Holidays are a time when we fly more often than ever. Often, these are not even long flights, so the internet is not guaranteed and is generally rarely found on board. We can use IFC (in-flight commerce). Low-cost airlines often do not have internet, but contactless payment by card is possible. What’s more, airlines are increasingly abandoning cash payments altogether. How is that even possible? And most importantly, what are the risks involved?

The terminal collects data, now what?

The terminals have offline modebut let’s face it – it is impossible to perform any authorization or verification of funds in the payer’s account in real time. The terminal collects payment card data during the flight. For this reason, the limits are usually very low to ensure the greatest possible security. Full authorization will only occur when an internet connection is provided. In practice, this is the time after landing, or the end of the working day.

What safety measures do airlines practice?

Airlines they have a blacklist of suspicious cards. Mostly stolen cards or those belonging to fraudsters end up there. A transaction using such a card is thwarted while still offline.

The most difficult to detect are skimming scams. They involve creating a duplicate card from previously copied data from the original’s magnetic stripe. The owner of the real card will only find out that the card has been copied when the fraudster uses it to pay for purchases. That is, after the fact. But this type of fraud is difficult to detect, even if we have an internet connection.

In case of rejection of transactions on board the aircraftthe airline will certainly contact us later to settle the bill. This is not always related to fraud, sometimes simple adversity is to blame.

See: ATM trap. Just insert your card and they’ll get you