Almost had a bad thing happen on our Vacation

[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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by behappy ........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.

[noone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazz4cash I did that for years, but NOONE EVER asked me for ID...

Really? Do you have to drag me into this?

[jazz4cash]

I am amazed that more institutions don't put photos on credit cards like BOA. I was in a hurry at an airport diner one time and the waitress mixed up my card with another diner. The other diner also had BofA and she noticed the problem immediately.

My BofA card was used in an out of town grocery store and BofA detected the fraud. They said someone physically swiped the card twice. One attempt was blocked but the other one went through. They took care of getting me a new card, but I had to reset some automatic bill payments. They sent me voice and email alerts as well as an alert on my online banking page.

[akck]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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!

I'd bet the cost goes back to the vendor. If they're lucky, they can stop shipments. We all pay for what they end up losing.

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreamer 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!

This is 12 year old data, but when I was doing fraud investigations the Visa security guy (one for the entire east coast) told us that their fraud losses were .5% of their profits. Not gross, but profits.

Their electric bill was a bigger expense. Since most of it gets kicked back to the vendor the cc companies don't really eat that much of the loss.