German banks call back credit cards

posted: 83 DAYS 21 HOURS AGO

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BERLIN -German banks are calling back tens of thousands of credit cards over security concerns after allegations of data theft in Spain.

"All banks are affected," said Steffen Steudel, spokesman for Germany's umbrella Central Credit Committee, on Wednesday.

Germans who have traveled to Spain in the last few months and have withdrawn money with their credit cards from local ATMs or made payments with their credit cards in stores or hotels, were asked to check their credit card bills to see if unauthorized purchases were made in their name.

A spokesman for both Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank said that the owners of up to 60,000 Visa and MasterCards issued by the two banks have been asked to pick up new cards at their local branches.

Other credit card issuers, including Deutsche Bank, KarstadtQuelle-Bank, Barclaycard and Lufthansa, have also canceled some customers' credit cards over security concerns and mailed out new ones.

At least 100,000 credit cards are being replaced, Financial Times Deutschland wrote.

Media reports said that some customers had already reported credit card frauds.

The spokespeople for the different banks did not say which Spanish company was involved in the fraud and how the data got lost or stolen, but said it was a company in charge of processing credit card payments.

Spanish national police said they had no information on the alleged scam.

2009-11-18 10:00:35