Glitch In Razr Phones Slice Out Countless Callers
LIN: It is one of the hottest cell phones on the market, but two companies put Motorola's Razr on hold this week. Cingular and Motorola halted it because of a glitch. CNN's Chris Huntington joins us from New York to explain. Chris, these are pretty popular.</s>CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I have one right here. These are the razor thin Razrs. They are very, very popular, quite a statement, although, what kind of statement if you can't get hooked up when you are trying to make the call. This has been embarrassing for Motorola over the last couple of weeks. And, as you mentioned, T-Mobile and Cingular had to pull the phone temporarily from selling it to customers, because there was a glitch in a big batch of these phones produced during February. This is for folks that use the GSM standard. That means T- Mobile and Cingular customers only. But the glitch basically meant some of these phones would drop calls unintentionally, or not be able to connect at all. We spoke to one woman who described the problem.</s>SANDRA CIPOLLA, RAZR OWNER: I couldn't dial out. And I couldn't get in. Like there was no reception on the phone, the actual phone, so --</s>HUNTINGTON (on camera): So like you picked it up and what would happen?</s>CIPOLLA: Nothing. You can't hear anything.</s>HUNTINGTON: You wouldn't even hear a dial tone?</s>CIPOLLA: Yeah.</s>HUNTINGTON: Now, we spoke to Motorola earlier today and would only give us a formal statement saying they're addressing the issue affecting what they say is a very limited number of Razr handsets sold, again, for the GSM system. That basically means in the United States, T-Mobile and also Cingular. Motorola saying it continuing to ship new handsets and hopes to have replacements in the hands in all of the retail outlets within the week, or so. Now we're here obviously at a Cingular outlet in Manhattan. And these folks here say they do have replacement phones. So, if you are a customer of T-Mobile or Cingular, and you think you're having trouble with your Razr phone, you can walk in and get it swapped out immediately. The one trouble, though, that Motorola still faces is it doesn't know exactly how many phones actually have the glitch. They're pretty sure it was only phones that were produced and sold during the month of February, but still trying to get a handle on it. And they won't put out a firm number. This is a very popular phone, sold more than 23 million units since being introduced just a little more than a year ago. So you can do the math, and understand, you could be talking about millions of phones worldwide that have the problem -- Carol.</s>LIN: All right. Chris, thank you very much. All right. More consumer news here; a debit card scam has gone international. So if you have a debit card, listen up. Financial giant Citibank has blocked transactions in Canada, Russia, Britain, after someone started using counterfeit cards at ATMs. Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual, have had to reissued debit cards after spotting fraudulent activity, i.e., stealing money out of people's accounts. Analyst Avivah Litan, of Garner Research, call it the biggest scam to date. The former World Bank expert joins me now from Washington. Viva, this is really frightening because I would say just about all of us have a debit card. How did these con artist get the PIN number? Because one couple reported having $3,000 taken out of their account?</s>AVIVAH LITAN, VICE PRES., GARTNER: The investigators are still trying to figure out exactly what happened. But somehow they got a hold of this key that's used to lock the data. And by getting hold of the key, they were able to unlock lock probably --</s>LIN: OK? Let's -- what key? Because I'm thinking the only way -- where do I use my PIN? I use it on a keypad at the ATM machine, I might use it on a keypad at the local store if I want to use my debit card. So does that little box store my PIN information?</s>LITAN: It's not supposed to, but that information was stored somewhere and it was in -- it's encrypted, meaning it was scrambled. And they got hold of the special key from a retailer's system, and they were able to unlock all the PINs.</s>LIN: So would it be one-stop shopping? Would it be one vendor, like a big retail chain, nationwide?</s>LITAN: The investigators are still trying to figure that out. But there has been a retailer that's been named, although they deny it. So it's probably one of their outsource vendors that was doing the work for them.</s>LIN: So how does that work? I mean, if I'm making -- if I swipe my debit card at the checkout counter, and my information is stored in this box, where would it go in order for it to go out into the wide world?</s>LITAN: It basically goes from the retailer to a processor and then to your bank and then to the merchant's bank. So it goes among a number of companies before it comes out of your bank. The compromise may have happened anywhere along the route, although it looks like it happened at the retailer outfit.</s>LIN: So would it be somebody who worked for the store, then?</s>LITAN: It could have been an insider, someone who knew how to get hold of the key. It may have been a hacker, it could have been an insider. But basically they found the key to unlock all these PINs.</s>LIN: So, is there enough electronic data so that they can actually narrow down the possible suspects and even find the specific vendor or the specific person?</s>LITAN: There should be enough data, because usually all these transactions are logged. So there's an audit trail of every single transaction. And that's what they're trying to figure out right now.</s>LIN: All right. So do you use a debit card? Do you feel comfortable using a debit card?</s>LITAN: Personally, I don't use PIN debit at the point of sale at a store. I only use it at a bank ATM machine. I would stay away from putting my PIN in at a store. Instead, you can just sign a slip.</s>LIN: Right, wow. Avivah, great advice. Thank you.</s>LITAN: Thank you.</s>LIN: Coming up, a wounded war vet meets his commander in chief.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hoping that I can be an inspiration.</s>LIN: He lost his legs on the front lines but he didn't lose his passion for life. How this double amputee is beating the odds. Plus, sometimes a doctor is not enough. How about seeing a teacher for what's ailing you? It's happening, a health coach. And no dogs allowed, at least not any more. The crackdown in California. Your watching CNN LIVE SATURDAY.