Re: 2016 reported fraud via micro-thefts
A charity and helpline in the UK called “Action for Elderly Abuse” http://elderabuse.org.uk/ has noticed a large increase of theft from the bank accounts of elderly european citizens, the presumed method of this loss is family members (or sometimes care staff) who have access to the elderly person’s wallet/purse have been making repeated micro-thefts (below the €20 threshold) by using the tap-and-pay method, without the agreement of the card owner.
This has led to comments in the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere of practical methods to disable the RFID, (as allegedly requests to some UK banks for non-RFID credit/debit cards were met wth a negative response)
The method from DT comments seemed to involve shining as many lumens as a 3.7V Li can blast out of a Cree LED holding a torch like http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B014H1UDA4/ against the RFID credit-card and use a marker to trace the antenna loop - then being careful not to drill any 0.5mm holes in the wrong place to invalidate it as a non-RFID credit card.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
