The Tinfoil Hat

OK, this has absolutely nothing to do with health or personal growth or lizards or coffee. But this wouldn’t be My Coat of Many Colours if I didn’t sometimes go off on a tangent, right? So please bear with me, this is actually important.

I am so annoyed that Visa decided to send me a proximity card without consulting me. All of my other credit cards need to be pushed into a machine and have a PIN put in before they yield their information, but this one you just wave vaguely in the direction of the reader. This is apparently desirable, as suggested by the current gawdawful “smallenfreude” (what language is that?) campaign going on. I’ve had store clerks tell me that sometimes the Visa picks up a payment when people had intended to use a different card. There are smartphone apps out there that will skim your card without ever touching it. I asked Visa about that and they said airily, “Oh, we cover that.” Really, they can prevent identity theft? I understand that they will repay me if somebody uses the information to steal money from my account or make purchases, but what if they use it to open other accounts in my name without my knowledge? Who is responsible then?

I just happened to be in my local hardware store when I saw the lovely pink container pictured above. It puts a nice Faraday cage around my cards without having to make it myself. I did have to get used to not having my cards in my regular wallet anymore, but that’s a small price to pay for avoiding smallenfreude. Ugh.

What do you think, are you a fan? Or are you as paranoid as I am? Do let me know!