David Marcus, president of PayPal, had his credit card information stolen while in the United Kingdom.
PayPal President David Marcus has been the victim of credit card fraud, he said on Monday. The leader of the online payments company revealed via Twitter that his credit card information had been stolen on a trip to the United Kingdom and he’d racked up a “ton” of fraudulent transactions on his account. Marcus speculated that thieves probably skimmed the info from the magnetic stripe on his card, even though his card had an EMV chip, a technology that makes cards in Europe more secure than the ones commonly used in the U.S.
My card (with EMV chip) got skimmed while in the UK. Ton of fraudulent txns. Wouldn’t have happened if merchant accepted PayPal…
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) February 10, 2014
Marcus leveraged the incident as an opportunity to plug his own company, speculating that the fraud wouldn’t have happened if only the merchant had accepted PayPal. His company is currently trying to expand its presence as a payment option in physical stores, putting it in direct competition with platforms like Square and Google Wallet.