I have emailed ‘singletrack’ about this but one thing I do feel that magazines don’t do is champion ‘consumer rights’ in any way.
They clearly have a difficult path to tread between keeping advertisers happy and their readership informed but I can’t help thinking that there is enough anecdotal evidence here (I haven’t checked any other forums) to at least contact CRC and ask them for a comment to appear somewhere on the site and also to talk to banks and acquirers to understand if there is a pattern in an increase in fraud and CRC purchases being made. The banks have enough info here to make the connection, even if CRC chose to deny it – the issue is that the banks have no financial gain to be made from doing the work – the loss is all CRC’s/O2’s etc.
CRC, as a web only business, have to understand that confidence in their processes is key and that by saying nothing the problem won’t go away – just fester.
Tbh, I’m surprised they haven’t gone down the Wiggle route of waving lawyers at stw and having this thread pulled – it must be embarassing, to say the least, to have this thread on a forum they sponsor.