It’s the final day of the Christmas shopping season, but there is still some concern among consumers that using a credit card or debit card at major stores can create problems down the road.
Yet, a new poll by the Saint Leo University Polling Institute shows those concerns won’t stop most people from still using those cards at checkout.
Some 82 percent of shoppers say they are very or somewhat concerned that their credit card information will be stolen from cyber breaches at stores. However, 61 percent say they will keep using currency the same way, and even singing up for advantage cards offered by many retailers.
In fact, there seems to be more concerns that retailers will track purchasing behaviors of shoppers than there are of others stealing their financial information.
A substantial number of people are even open to enhanced security techniques, such as requiring fingerprint scans, but not go as far as requiring eye scans.
“In most cases, data breaches did not directly impact customers, but caused huge losses for companies,” said Sreekanth Malladi, a cybersecurity professor at Saint Leo University, in a release. “One of the affected companies, for example, spent millions of dollars to recreate and reissue their credit cards. Ultimately, the company incurred significant indirect losses, including cleanups, remaking, gap in sales, and reputation.”
In terms of whether businesses are tracking spending habits of customers, it’s not exactly what people think it is, Malladi said.
“It seems to be a myth,” he said. “People think companies now have more access to their personal information than needed. Companies actually try to safeguard an individuals’ personal information more than ever, since it will be their own loss if they didn’t.
“It is unfair for consumers to say, ‘We want you to properly authenticate transactions, but we will not give you our personal information to help it.'”
The Saint Leo poll surveyed 1,1016 adults nationally between Nov. 25 and Dec. 6. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
