My mother is visiting us a week early December. We are taking her on two days Buzios and a stay in Casas Brancas.
Today we received the reservation confirmation from Fabia Rocha (reservation manager), it reads:
1 - Please complete the attached file with your credit card details (AMEX or VISA).
2 - Resend the authorization form together with a legible photocopy of both sides of your credit card to us by fax: 55 22 2623-2147, until November 24th.
3 - On December 01st, we will debit from your credit card the total amount for your reservation and then send your final confirmation with the booking number.
6 weeks ago I wouldn’t have had any issue doing so, naive as I am. only, last month my credit card has been cloned. Yes, cloned. It’s a coming thing in Brazil. You go to a supermarket like Sendas, or make a booking through the process Fabia suggests. This means they have: your name, your credit card number and your security code. Probably all those Visa reservations of Fabia linger somewhere on her desk at reception. Imagine this smart porteiro taking on an evening copies of a pile of hundreds of old reservations. He takes that information to one of the many place where they make cloned cards and the next month you see that someone who is not you went shopping with a copy of your credit card. And then you can try to have the money paid back by Visa or Mastercard.
Fabia and dear Managers of Casas Brancas; the process you suggest is absolutely illegal based on Visa standards. No wonder Casas Brancas does not accept Mastercard, this credit card company is much more secure then Visa. Sending this permalink to Visa Brazil and Visa int; and hope they wake up.