Almost had a bad thing happen on our Vacation

[MichaelB]

I my last fill up was $119, but my personal 'best' is $348...

Whew. And I complain when it goes over $50.

 

[Sarah in SC]

You've clearly never filled up a 60 gallon school bus tank in England or worse, Japan! Yikes!

 

[REWahoo]

You've clearly never filled up a 60 gallon school bus tank in England or worse, Japan! Yikes!

No, I've never had the yen to do that... <rimshot>

 

[Alan]

Last week we went online to make a $200 purchase with our Penfed Visa and it was declined so we used our Amex Card (btw, there is no where to sign your name on the back of an Amex Blue Cash card). About 15 minutes later Penfed called to say they had cancelled our card after 3 suspicious purchases today. Could I confirm $30 at the doctor's office, $19 at the pharmacy and a $24 online purchase. I told them that yes, I had been to the doctors then picked up a prescription and my wife had ordered some balls of wool. (she never mentioned the last attempt we had made as the card was already canceled by then). I then said I didn't think a thief was likely to steal my card to go to the doctors and pharmacy in my home town, but I wish their fraud detection software had been able to detect the activity in June when someone walked into many stores in New York and Atlanta over 3 days and bought $23k worth of goods, which is more than my entire annual spend, is in towns hundred of miles of miles from my home, and in conflict with the flags on my card stating that I would be in England at the time of the fraudulent purchases. (it was me checking my account online that discovered the fraud).

 

[Larro Darro]

We have two cards that we use the most. A Sam's Club Discover card for everyday stuff, and a Lowe's Visa that we use at Lowe's. The Lowe's card pays you back in Lowe's Rewards, and it offers three percent on purchases at Lowe's. Since it has very few charges on it, we use it for any online charges. The thinking is if the number was stolen, we would notice any strange charges right away. So far we have never had one stolen, but at Walmart I entered my Zipcode wrong one time. When we got home the Discover Fraud department had called to check on it.

 

[Rustward]

I also don't sign the back of the card anymore, instead I print "ASK FOR ID". Not full proof since not all establishments ask to see the card anymore, you just swipe it. But should still be helpful just in case they do.

The signature just signifies that you have agreed to the card's T's & C's.

 

[tuixiu]

We travel a lot, and for reasons above posts carry different cards. Usual pattern is each having one credit card and one ATM card, so four total unique sources of cash. When we're out and about we usual hide one of the ATM cards somewhere in the guesthouse (under a TV, in the bedframe, in book in drawer, etc.) so if a catastrophic mugging happens to both of us we've still got a source of cash.

It is part theft protection and part damn this card won't work in this 3rd world country protection.

When traveling I also always have a a few hundred dollar bills, a few large notes in local currency, and copies of our passport front page squirreled away in one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/EK-Secret-Pocket-Hidden-Security/dp/B00BQH3BHK

 

[Ronnieboy]

This may have been a technical issue. Do your cards have Chip & Pin technology?

At the gas pumps I use, you must have a credit card with a chip and then you must enter a PIN.

When I am in the US I am unable to pay at the pump because I don't gave a Zip Code to enter. I have to go to the cashier, agree to pay up to a specified amount, fill up, then return to the cashier to finalize the transaction.

All the Tim Hortons I have been to in the past couple of years use point of sale devices that similarly use chip and pin technology.

No Chip and Pin tech, in fact most of the places we used it mentioned how people don't have to sign for charges anymore, but we had to sign every one.

The other 5 or 6 times I used the self pay pump at the gas station worked and after my phone call to Amex it worked. It was just a PITA for having to call them after I previously called and told them we'd be in Canada, not to mention their spiel about how grate AMEX is for not requiring the call in the first place....not.

 

[2B]

I have a credit card that is used only for recurring bills (electricity, cable, alarm, etc.). It is never carried anywhere. It's intent was to be hyper secure so our bills would be paid automatically.

We got a call asking if we had used the card earlier that day in Italy. Unfortunately, I hadn't. The charge was for 1 euro. I asked about how could they get a number and why such a small amount. I was told that the small amount was only to see if it was a good number. The thief could have just been randomly playing with numbers and security number on back and got lucky or they could have hacked one of our payees.

They cancelled the old card and fedexed a new card. I got to spend two hours converting all the bills to the new number. Fortunately, nothing fell through the cracks.

 

[Lsbcal]

I have a credit card that is used only for recurring bills (electricity, cable, alarm, etc.). It is never carried anywhere. It's intent was to be hyper secure so our bills would be paid automatically.
...

Good idea.

I hadn't thought of that but luckily all of our critical accounts are auto-paid through a checking account: medical, mortgage, pge. Things paid from the credit card are (luckily for us) companies that I could manage when I got back like Netflix, Comcast, etc. We are almost never away more then a month.

 

[gozer]

I had my credit card shut down when I was the one making the purchases. We bought a large TV at one store and the home theater equipment at another, so they shut me down thinking my card was stolen because the activity deviated from my norm. I have started calling them when I am about to do something off program to avoid that.

 

[brett]

We always travel with several credit cards. We never, ever use our debit card-either at home or when we travel.

We have had a card 'suspended' for security reasons while traveling in small towns etc. in Costa Rica, South Africa, Turkey, etc. Backup cards allow us to get around this temporary inconvenience.

We always keep the cards in seperate locations so if we get robbed, pick pocketed etc. we aways have one or two cards in secondary safe place. It has happened. When I worked, we always took my business AMex card on day trips so than any untoward activity would not impact our personal accounts.

 

[Rustward]

I have a credit card that is used only for recurring bills (electricity, cable, alarm, etc.). It is never carried anywhere. It's intent was to be hyper secure so our bills would be paid automatically.

We got a call asking if we had used the card earlier that day in Italy. Unfortunately, I hadn't. The charge was for 1 euro. I asked about how could they get a number and why such a small amount. I was told that the small amount was only to see if it was a good number. The thief could have just been randomly playing with numbers and security number on back and got lucky or they could have hacked one of our payees.

They cancelled the old card and fedexed a new card. I got to spend two hours converting all the bills to the new number. Fortunately, nothing fell through the cracks.

Your card information can be stolen without anybody seeing the physical card. Trust me on this.

 

[MBAustin]

I carry two cards (because most pumps won't let us fill up the motorhome tank on one card) and DH carries one, all different.

Can't you swipe the card a second time if you reach the $ limit on the first try? I've never had a problem doing that (Penfed Visa).

It depends on the station. Some will allow a re-swipe, others will not. Most pumps have a $100/swipe maximum, but I've seen as low as $75 and as high as $150.

Just how much does it cost to fill the tank?

It's 55 gallons, so if it's close to empty and gas is over $3.50 (as it was for most of our 4300 mile trip last month) it can be pretty close to $200.

 

[tuixiu]

I had a card shut down once because of a fraud attempt. Someone tried to buy a bunch of crap on the website of an outdoor outfitter type place in another state, it was denied but card was suspended and new ones sent out anyway. Like other poster I got to spend a couple hours changing internet, cable, netflix, groupon, steam, etc. to the new card. Pain in the ass.

I called the company they made the attempt on, the nice fraud dept lady actually gave me the information on what they tried to buy, the IP address, and the shipping address they used. IP was from Nigeria (imagine that eh?) and the shipping address was some house in Florida. I played around with the idea of contacting the police with jurisdiction of that house but after reading up and finding many shipping forwarders are unknowing partners in crime I just blew it off.

 

[imoldernu]

Anyone using "Bluebird"?... After a big push through Walmart, didn't hear any more.
I ordered the account, but never activated it. Was planning to give secondary cards to relatives for emergency funds...( Card owner controls amount to be allowed on secondary cards.) Sounded like a good idea.

 

[Dreamer]

I am not sure what is going on, but our PenFed Visa card had to be shut down at the beginning of last week and our Discover Card at the end of the same week. The Discover Card declined an attempted charge of $1300 at a Home Depot in NY and we live in WV. Received our new PenFed Visa cards and a few days later a form that we had to complete showing that we did not make the charges that they had contacted us about. They were made in NC. We just went through this with Discover Card in 02/13. My DH thinks we should get rid of all credit cards and carry cash. I vetoed that suggestion. Can anyone think of anything that we can do to try to make it harder for the people who are compromising our credit cards? This is getting ridiculous.

 

[meierlde]

I am not sure what is going on, but our PenFed Visa card had to be shut down at the beginning of last week and our Discover Card at the end of the same week. The Discover Card declined an attempted charge of $1300 at a Home Depot in NY and we live in WV. Received our new PenFed Visa cards and a few days later a form that we had to complete showing that we did not make the charges that they had contacted us about. They were made in NC. We just went through this with Discover Card in 02/13. My DH thinks we should get rid of all credit cards and carry cash. I vetoed that suggestion. Can anyone think of anything that we can do to try to make it harder for the people who are compromising our credit cards? This is getting ridiculous.

Is it possible someone is either mining your garbage or stealing your mail?
I assume you shred statements before putting them in the trash, or have it all online. The fact that it happened to multiple cards, suggests this. or else you have chosen stores that have had folks break in to their systems.

 

[Dreamer]

I keep our statements and no signs of mail being stolen. Stores that we commonly use are Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Kroger, and gas stations. We use Discover usually for the Dental School and medical bills. Put our insurance bills on a different credit card that has not been compromised yet. DH went on a trip and used the Discover Card for hotels and dining and attractions. He used the PenFed card for gasoline.

 

[Sarah in SC]

My suggestions are to get a locking mailbox, sign up for as much of your statements as possible to come to you online, use specific cards for specific purposes (sounds like you are doing this already) and then just stay on top of them with Mint or something like that.

I think that CC fraud will continue to be a problem until the chip/pin technology becomes more widespread. Often times it isn't anything to do with you that gets your stuff compromised, it is at the company who is storing your info.

 

[Rustward]

You can protect your card and associated information (and you should), but the vast majority of credit card fraud originates with dishonest people who are trusted and have access to card information in, mostly, card processing centers. What happens there is 100% out of the control of the cardholder (you), the merchant, and the card issuing bank.

One such event occurred at Heartland Payment Systems (you can probably Google it) several years ago.

There is nothing that you (the cardholder) can do to prevent this.

Just watch the charges going to your card, reconcile the statement each billing cycle, and report any charges you did not make to the issuing bank. They will have you sign an affidavit, remove the fraudulent charges, and issue a new card. This has become business as usual.

BTW: If you are dependent on credit cards, it is best to have several, because when this happens it takes some finite amount of time to get a replacement card, and this can be inconvenient depending on where you happen to be and what you are doing at the time.

 

[Rustward]

This article talks about a massive 3rd party attack on multiple merchants and processors:
Feds Indict Five In Massive Credit-Card Data Breach Scheme -- Dark

The cardholder has no defense against something like this.

 

[akck]

About the only thing you can do is monitor your credit cards online, at minimum weekly. That way you can be proactive in catching fraudulent charges. It sounds like there was no common vendor on the cards, so I'd guess there was a breach of one of the processing centers used by the cards. I'd also check your credit report monthly for any new cards. I use creditkarma.com to monitor activity and credit scores.

One more thing to keep in mind if you decide to fore go credit cards and write checks, is that with every check, you're giving everybody who touches the check, your banking information, which can be easily be duplicated on fraudulent checks. It happened at work where someone likely copied a vendor check and then proceeded to make with our account information. We were able to catch it before any payments went out, but we still get an occasional collections company calling.

 

[Dreamer]

Thanks guys. I guess that I will start trying to look at our credit cards online more frequently. I am glad that the credit card companies are catching these charges and don't pass the cost onto us, but I don't understand how the credit card companies can keep absorbing this cost. It has to be costing them a huge amount of money!

 

[jazz4cash]

........I print "ASK FOR ID". Not full proof since not all establishments ask to see the card anymore, you just swipe it. But should still be helpful just in case they do.

I did that for years, but NOONE EVER asked me for ID and the Post Office would not accept a card without a signature.