I was just a victim of CC fraud - anyone else?

[bbbamI]

The cc company had to know. Since the amounts were so small, I don't think they wanted to deal with it, but had to when the customer complained.

Another reason to check the statements line by line.

 

[bssc]

Two comments

I don't use my debit card for anything but taking cash out of ATMs.

If you are travelling, you can call your credit card company and place a note on your account to let them know that there will be out of area charges.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, I had almost the exact same scenario last summer, with Bank of America. The fraud department called me that afternoon. I called back, but got suspicious with a couple of personal ID questions, so I called the number on the card, and eventually got back to the same department and the same questions!

They were able to verify which charges were valid that day. The rest were on-line charges coming out of Europe as far as I could understand. How my CC number got into someone else's hands - I have no idea.

I couldn't believe how quickly they caught it and shut down my card!

We were traveling (as usual), so I had to wait until we got near a city for a couple of days, at which time I arranged to have replacement cards overnighted to a local branch of Bank of America.

All this required lots of verification! But otherwise it wasn't too bad.

It did cause a hassle with some recurring charges! After that I switched the recurring charges to a different credit card which I use for no other purpose.

Oh - and I never saw any of the bogus charges.

Audrey

 

[chinaco]

I had a fraudulent charege on a card about 10 years ago for about $5000. Its a long story... But I rarely used the card (few times). The Fraud occurred right after I closed the account but before the system closed it out. THe Banks Fraud dept caught it. I always will believe someone at the bank sold the card number. The charge was made in Saudi Arabia. I have never been there.


On the same note did you hear about TJX. It is the parent company of TJMAXX, Marshals, Homegoods and several other retail cahin stores. They had a data breash and millions of credit and debit card numbers were stolen. There was on article in the press that indicated that there were as many as 40mm card numbers. Anyway, my wife shops at one of the store. Our credit card company contacted us and suggested that we shut down the account and open a new one... We did.

I have been notified 3 times over the last 3 years that data has been stolen. I finally put a rider on my home owners policy for identity theft. It cost about $20/yr. It will pay up to $15k to help me undo the damage if Identity theft ever occurs. It is my understanding that (depending on how bad it is) you will need to hire special services and maybe a lawyer to clean up your credit record.

 

[Life_is_Good]

A few summers ago a scam was setup at our neighborhood GAS STATION. Some technology was put into place to capture the card information as it was slid through the scanners next to the pumps. We only found one fraudulant charge under $500 when we had our bank cancel the cards. We found out the details when the story posted to the local newspaper a few months later.

 

[mh]

I also have to give kudos to Chase for their efforts to avoid fraud. My DH was recently in France, as it was outside our normal spending pattern they did call to check we had authorised the expenditure. I was most impressed by their efforts. Fortunatley for us, it was not fraud, just my husband spending.

Don't be *too* impressed, it's their own interests that they have foremost
in mind when fraud monitoring like this.

 

[teejayevans]

Re: I was just a victim of CC fraud - Walmart online music

I purchase music online at Walmart, few months later I got a charge for
$400 from a Walmart in Ohio, call up Discover card and had it taken care
of, when I went back to the walmart online music store, lo and behold they
still have my credit card info!! You can protect you CC all you want, but
when stores save the information, its like a candy store to hackers and
crooked employees. Needless to say, I don't buy online from Walmart
anymore.
Tom

 

[OkieTexan]

Several years ago I had a $9000 debacle with CC fraud on a VISA card. I contacted the fraud division. All the verifications were made. I was told I was not liable for the charge. A new account was opened. I was told to destroy the old cards, etc. I thought I was in the clear with a new card.

However, the idiots moved the $9000 charge, with late charges over to the new account! It took weeks, talking to managers and supervisors all over the country to get it resolved. One creep even told me I had to pay the $9K..........

I just kept asking to "talk to your boss" until I got someone to help me.
I am glad to hear that most of you are getting better results these days!

 

[MikeD]

The only fraud we ever had was on a phone company calling card in Louisvilee, KY in '91. I only used the card once ever in a Red Roof Inn from my room phone. A few weeks later we had thousands of dollars of charges from Naval bases all over the world. At times there were over 10 calls being made at the same time globally. The phone company accused us of making the calls. We finally had to dispute every call in writing to get them dropped. We changed phone companies.

I also had a Christian business man (he had one of the fish in his ad. This is not why we picked him)charge us a deposit for some HVAC work and never show and then not take the charges back. My wife, who used to check the CC bills at the time, didn't notice for 60 days and the CC company wouldn't take them back. We called the sherrif and he knew the guy so he sent the county district attourney over to have a talk with him. Two weeks later: a credit!

We are much more careful now. I check the bank and the credit card every day.

Mike D.

 

[JustCurious]

We are much more careful now. I check the bank and the credit card every day.

You are obviously retired.

 

[teejayevans]

You are obviously retired.

Discover card has notification system, you give them a limit and they will send you a
email whenever a charge is posted exceeding that limit, I'm sure other CCs have a
similar function. So you can set the limit to $200 to avoid getting emails for every
charge.
Tom

 

[W2R]

You are obviously retired.

I'm not retired, and work hard. Like JustCurious, I like to keep an eye on things. I check my bank, 401K, and Roth every morning so that I know what I am working for. You can do that online these days which makes it lots easier. With the Links bar it hardly takes a minute.

As for the question - - I don't have a credit card and don't want one due to my devotion to my LBYM lifestyle. But, I have a debit card that I use to buy gas, and someone charged a Dell laptop to it back in 2000. This was before my bank had e-banking but Dell sent me a snail mail confirming that this purchase had been made with my card. Dell had sent the laptop to a person with a neareastern name living in San Jose. I had never been there, and did not know the person.

So, I went to my bank, and they gave me the money back immediately - - temporarily, at first, and then permanently after a couple of months when their investigation was complete. It was the entire amount, with no $50 subtracted. I think my bank responded wonderfully and better than I would have expected.

 

[yelnad]

My husband's Discover card was used at a Lowe's in Brooklyn last week for $2200. It was also used at gas stations and grocery stores in the PA/NY area. Discover took care of it right away.

 

[bright eyed]

This is why I don't use debit cards. If someone steals my CC number (which they have), no big deal. If the CC company doesn't call me right away, I'll catch it when I review the monthly statement. The bottom line is they don't get any of my money for anything that I didn't charge. But with debit cards, the thief has direct access to my money. I can catch it later, but undoing the damage is much more difficult.

Me too - My debit card was used once for a $200 transaction i didn't make and i immediately called the bank (bofa) and they gave me a little runaround - and even tried to deny my claim - but i was very persistant and they put the $ back...this was when they first started their commercials about "if something happens, money goes back into your account that day" - i was like, "hello?" so it took a while but I was pissed off and scared off from trusting their security. i don't use the card at all now.

i think someone had a device to track acct '#'s off of those non-bank atm machines, because they obviously had my pin # too. scary!

 

[eridanus]

The "$50 maximum" federal law does not protect debit cards. It only applies to credit cards, though the bank itself may extend the protection.

 

[SteveR]

I was the victim of a non-fraudlent CC issue. Citicards cancelled my MC without a word of notice. I received a new set of cards with a new account number and a letter telling me my account was closed because of fraudlent use. I called the bank and asked about the charges that caused them to close the account. All were my own charges. Their detector system was too sensitive in my case.

I used the card for a variety of monthly accounts like Dish, internet ISP, etc. I also use it for some internet purchases. It was the internet purchases that set off the fraud detectors...I guess Citi never heard of internet purchases.

Last week I received a call from Citi asking about some charges on the new account. Again, they were all my charges. I gave them an earful about not understanding people can actually buy something in CA one hour and in NY the next on the internet without being there in person. All I got was silence on the other end. As long as they call me I am fine with it...I just don't want them to cancel my card again without talking to me first. It was a pain to change the CC number on several on-line accounts.

I am glad they are looking...just wish they would talk to me before they jump to conclusions.

 

[ERD50]

Re: I was just a victim of CC fraud - Walmart online music

.... lo and behold they still have my credit card info!! You can protect you CC all you want, but
when stores save the information, its like a candy store to hackers and
crooked employees. Needless to say, I don't buy online from Walmart
anymore.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think walmart *ever* actually had your credit card info stored away. What they have stored is a number 'key' that, when combined with another number 'key' stored in a 'cookie' on your computer, will recreate the CC number.

The key they have is meaningless until you log onto their site from your computer. It is like having one piece to a puzzle.

I worry much more about giving the CC to the server at a restaurant. They can take it and use that high tech device known as a pencil, and store your CC# permanently.

-EDR50