Fraudulent charge on Fidelity Visa card :(

[FANOFJESUS]

Anybody eat at CHIPOTLE? https://www.chipotle.com/security

 

[rayinpenn]

The process of getting bogus charges and getting a new card is referred to as a 'lost stolen'. The frequency that it happens is shocking. There are just so many crooks out there...

Setting up alerts is a great way to spot bad charges early.

 

[Golden sunsets]

Received an email from Bank of America travel rewards about a month ago, telling me my card had likely been compromised and my card would be cancelled effective a few days hence and new cards had been issued and mailed. I thought this a bit strange and asked both of my kids who have a card from the same issuer if they had received such a notice. Nope!

A couple of days later, we received the new cards. When I went to the website to authorize the new cards, I saw a charge had just been posted to the old card by Taco LLC which apparently is a chain located in the southwest. I called BOA to deny the charge, which they credited immediately and didn't need yet another new card as only the old number had been used.

The next day I received a letter from Taco, LLC informing me that they had received a suspicious charge for a gift card purchase to be mailed to a different address from that of the cardholder and they had flagged the purchase for authorization. This is perhaps the fifth time my card has been compromised in as many years. It's the first time my card issuer has replaced my card BEFORE the card was actually compromised.

Needless to say, I check my active cards on line for transactions numerous times during the month.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[ceciledian]

We've had fraudulent charges now and then over the years. On the flip side, I've been declined 3 times with Citicard as secondary user at POS for what they considered "uncharacteristic" purchases. (Grocery stores, really?) My husband would get a text to call back and verify, but by then it's too late. I'd already pulled out another card much to my embarrassment as there are people waiting in line behind me. I quit using that card.

 

[Chuckanut]

Was yours also a $5000 charge from the CAEE - the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education? The first Elan associate thought it odd the charge came from a charitable organization.

No, I don't remember the exact name but it sounded like some type of charitable or medical association.

 

[Sue J]

Anybody eat at CHIPOTLE? https://www.chipotle.com/security

Should this have been preventable since all (or most) cards now use the chip?

My older son eats at Chipotle all the time and he just laughs at these fraud alerts because he pays CASH.

The only fraud activity we've had has been on our PenFed card. They pick it up as fraudulent before it's posted on the account. They called and asked, "Did you just buy jewelry in France?" and then they canceled the card and sent new ones.

If we travel I set up notifications (specific to state or country) so that they don't flag something if we are away from home.

 

[audreyh1]

No, I don't remember the exact name but it sounded like some type of charitable or medical association.

Very odd this.

 

[Koolau]

I can sort of understand the CC companies choosing not to pursue fraud since it's not "worth it." However, at some point this encourages more fraud. Throwing a few folks in jail for a year for charging $50 on a stolen cc number would really slow this kind of thing down. To me, its not so much the "cost" (since I never pay a fee for a card nor do I ever pay interest.) To me it is the feeling that you have been taken advantage of and you feel relatively powerless to do anything about it. Most of the time, the CC co. makes it easy and quick to get back to using a card, but there's always the lingering doubt that you could eventually get stuck with some huge bill that you did not charge. I suppose it's a form of paranoia, but then again, being paranoid doesn't always mean that there isn't someone out to get you. YMMV

 

[Sunset]

I can sort of understand the CC companies choosing not to pursue fraud since it's not "worth it." However, at some point this encourages more fraud. Throwing a few folks in jail for a year for charging $50 on a stolen cc number would really slow this kind of thing down. To me, its not so much the "cost" (since I never pay a fee for a card nor do I ever pay interest.) To me it is the feeling that you have been taken advantage of and you feel relatively powerless to do anything about it. Most of the time, the CC co. makes it easy and quick to get back to using a card, but there's always the lingering doubt that you could eventually get stuck with some huge bill that you did not charge. I suppose it's a form of paranoia, but then again, being paranoid doesn't always mean that there isn't someone out to get you. YMMV

Could be that you "pay" for it by the CC not offering you more bonuses, since they have to spend millions checking for, finding fraud etc. Plus they pass on this cost to the merchants where you buy the goods, so the merchants raise the price a little to make up the difference.
So somewhere you do pay for it.

What bugs me, is CC companies have millions of card holders, after 10 phone in to complain about a false/fake charge, they don't stop all future charges and deny that this specific charge is fake (Like I'm the only person who was charged $9.99 from another country).
I found this same fake charge on both a Visa and MC, so it was widespread.

Why don't they stop it? because they still make a profit if you pay the fake charge.

 

[Chuckanut]

Very odd this.

Yes. We seem to be two people with a desire to give a large chunk of money to a charity we have never heard of.

 

[Koolau]

Could be that you "pay" for it by the CC not offering you more bonuses, since they have to spend millions checking for, finding fraud etc. Plus they pass on this cost to the merchants where you buy the goods, so the merchants raise the price a little to make up the difference.
So somewhere you do pay for it.

What bugs me, is CC companies have millions of card holders, after 10 phone in to complain about a false/fake charge, they don't stop all future charges and deny that this specific charge is fake (Like I'm the only person who was charged $9.99 from another country).
I found this same fake charge on both a Visa and MC, so it was widespread.

Why don't they stop it? because they still make a profit if you pay the fake charge.

I'm sure you are correct. One way or another, we all pay and they still make their profit. The good news for those of us who pay off our cards monthly is that we pay less of the fraud than those who continue to pay the obscene interest rates charged by the CC companies. YMMV

 

[Chuckanut]

There is a cost to us for CC fraud.

This is what happened to a friend of mine who was spending his usual Winter month in Hawaii. A few days after he arrived, his CC was canceled due to fraud. Do you know how hard it is to get your CC issuer to send you a new card to a temporary address that is out of state? It took him 10 days and several trips to a bank in Hawaii to finally get them to ship him his card. If he had been out of the country I doubt if he could have got a replacement card. A word to the wise - take at least two CC's and two ATM cards if you can.

 

[Koolau]

There is a cost to us for CC fraud.

This is what happened to a friend of mine who was spending his usual Winter month in Hawaii. A few days after he arrived, his CC was canceled due to fraud. Do you know how hard it is to get your CC issuer to send you a new card to a temporary address that is out of state? It took him 10 days and several trips to a bank in Hawaii to finally get them to ship him his card. If he had been out of the country I doubt if he could have got a replacement card. A word to the wise - take at least two CC's and two ATM cards if you can.

Yup! 3 Visa and a Discover card. Don't leave home without several! I can't imagine depending upon one card. I've had too many "declines" for no apparent reason to ever depend upon one card. YMMV

 

[Fedup]

There is a cost to us for CC fraud.

This is what happened to a friend of mine who was spending his usual Winter month in Hawaii. A few days after he arrived, his CC was canceled due to fraud. Do you know how hard it is to get your CC issuer to send you a new card to a temporary address that is out of state? It took him 10 days and several trips to a bank in Hawaii to finally get them to ship him his card. If he had been out of the country I doubt if he could have got a replacement card. A word to the wise - take at least two CC's and two ATM cards if you can.

This is one of my worries. Try to call 800 number from overseas is a nightmare. I tried that in Italy when one hotel said they received no voucher for my free stay that I booked using the credit rewards.

 

[audreyh1]

There is a cost to us for CC fraud.

This is what happened to a friend of mine who was spending his usual Winter month in Hawaii. A few days after he arrived, his CC was canceled due to fraud. Do you know how hard it is to get your CC issuer to send you a new card to a temporary address that is out of state? It took him 10 days and several trips to a bank in Hawaii to finally get them to ship him his card. If he had been out of the country I doubt if he could have got a replacement card. A word to the wise - take at least two CC's and two ATM cards if you can.

I didn't have trouble. I had to answer quite a few security questions, and then arranged to pick my new credit card at a bank branch in a different state. So yes, more trouble, but it wasn't much more.

Now, if I had been in a state with no branches - it would have been more difficult.

We do always travel overseas with backup credit and ATM cards.

 

[jonat]

On the first day of a 2-week trip to Ireland, Chase notified me that my Sapphire Preferred card had been compromised and they were disabling it. If I was staying in one place they would have sent me a new card, but I was on a bus tour. They offered to disallow new charges except for card-present in Ireland. This worked out well. I had no problem calling Chase.

Nevertheless, I also travel with a minimum of two cards, if not three.

 

[meierlde]

This is one of my worries. Try to call 800 number from overseas is a nightmare. I tried that in Italy when one hotel said they received no voucher for my free stay that I booked using the credit rewards.

I have noticed that cards now include a call collect non 800 phone number for use outside the US and Canada now.

 

[Fedup]

I have noticed that cards now include a call collect non 800 phone number for use outside the US and Canada now.

Even with the toll free international, I was trying to use my cell phone to call them, very unsuccessful. Luckily, the next morning, the same Italian manager said it was ok. He contacted the company that booked me.

 

[sam49]

Audrey,
My Fidelity card is charged by CAEE too for $5000. I am trying to make sense. Did you travel to Maine by any chance or can it be from Chipotle?

Trying to make a link between you and me. I live in Boston, MA.
--Sam

 

[audreyh1]

Audrey,
My Fidelity card is charged by CAEE too for $5000. I am trying to make sense. Did you travel to Maine by any chance or can it be from Chipotle?

Trying to make a link between you and me. I live in Boston, MA.
--Sam

No I didn't. I have never eaten at Chipotle, and I've ever been to Maine either.

And CAEE is the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, a charity. I haven't been to Colorado for a few years either.

It is truly bizarre.

Did you join here to track down this fraudulent charge?

 

[cathy63]

Audrey,
My Fidelity card is charged by CAEE too for $5000. I am trying to make sense. Did you travel to Maine by any chance or can it be from Chipotle?

Trying to make a link between you and me. I live in Boston, MA.
--Sam

It is not likely that you'll figure out the link. Chipotle is the hack you've heard about, because those hackers were incompetent. Think about all the cases where the hackers are good enough that the company doesn't even know they've been hacked. Or worse yet, the ones that knew but covered it up so there was no publicity.

In a previous life, I worked for a place that creates and hosts websites for non-profits. We processed millions in credit card donations every day for all different kinds of groups. A very common scenario was that we'd suddenly start getting hit with numerous transactions for the same amount on many different cards from an IP address overseas (mainly in Russia, but sometimes other eastern European nations). This meant that some hackers had a list of stolen card numbers and they were trying to figure out which numbers were still valid and what the credit limits were. Online donation forms are a very easy way to test stolen cards because they are just a single page and it's easy to write a program to fill it out and submit it with no human intervention. It sounds like the two of you have cards on the same hacker's list, which could have been assembled from multiple different hacks and then sold to the guy that's now trying to validate the data.

 

[jonat]

I follow KrebsOnSecurity for info on credit card breaches and other similar issues. Most recently Krebs broke the story that Kmart had a second breach with malware at hundreds of their store terminals.

Now that I can, I have been using Apple Pay and apps to pay for things at local stores and gas stations - this effectively blocks card stealing. I also get real-time alerts from my card issuers for charges so I can instantly detect problems. I'm also more aware of card skimming (Krebs has good articles on those) and take precautions.

 

[audreyh1]

In a previous life, I worked for a place that creates and hosts websites for non-profits. We processed millions in credit card donations every day for all different kinds of groups. A very common scenario was that we'd suddenly start getting hit with numerous transactions for the same amount on many different cards from an IP address overseas (mainly in Russia, but sometimes other eastern European nations). This meant that some hackers had a list of stolen card numbers and they were trying to figure out which numbers were still valid and what the credit limits were. Online donation forms are a very easy way to test stolen cards because they are just a single page and it's easy to write a program to fill it out and submit it with no human intervention. It sounds like the two of you have cards on the same hacker's list, which could have been assembled from multiple different hacks and then sold to the guy that's now trying to validate the data.

Well that's very interesting.

Don't see how that's very effective technique though, as a $5000 charge will flag the issuing bank immediately and shut down the card as it did ours.

I've not shopped at Kmart or Chipotle, so who knows how our card number was stolen. The only thing is that this is our most heavily used card by far, so it's not surprising. What is surprising is that it's been a long while since I've had a stolen number.

 

[H2ODude]

Just had to cancel our Fido Visa yesterday as saw a $900+ charge to Cricket. Pissed that it took 2-3 minutes to get to the right place on phone tree to deal with it.

Asked the rep why this happens so often and he mentioned that common if you use card for gas. I'm assuming it's because they wifi from the pumps and people hack the wifi there?

 

[audreyh1]

Just had to cancel our Fido Visa yesterday as saw a $900+ charge to Cricket. Pissed that it took 2-3 minutes to get to the right place on phone tree to deal with it.

Asked the rep why this happens so often and he mentioned that common if you use card for gas. I'm assuming it's because they wifi from the pumps and people hack the wifi there?

Funny - I use my PenFed or Costco card for gas and we haven't yet run into a compromise on either. (knock on wood!!)

I usually get the direct number to their Fraud department when anything pops up. But yeah, their regular system needs to recognize the word "fraud" or "fraudulent charge" and direct you. You can ask for associate and get through. But then you have to wait on them to transfer you.