Have You Ever Had Your Credit Card # Stolen?

[TromboneAl]

Got the "unusual activity" call last night (an automated call from BofA that DW almost hung up on). Sure enough, about four transactions that weren't from us.

So, when we new cards arrive, I'll have to contact all the merchants who have our CC number on file.

I had used ShopSafe for a while (one-time use numbers), but it was very inconvenient.

I'm curious as to how many of you this has happened to.

 

[ziggy29]

Yep -- twice. The last time was a couple years ago when I looked at one of our accounts and saw about $4,000 in fraudulent charges. I called the issuer (USAA) and told them which transactions were bogus. These bad charges were taken off the account, the account was closed and a new card with a new number reached us in less than a week. It was actually pretty painless, all things considered.

 

[dex]

Citicard has a program that generates a card number for each purchase you make on the internet.
I use it for all on line purchases.
https://www.citibank.com/us/cards/vanpromo/cmc_pop/index2.htm


Any idea how the criminal got the number?

 

[KB]

I've had my cc compromised (Visa database hacked) which caused my credit union to cancel and reissue the card. I've also had a false charge which was probably from an automated program. It was a small charge under $4.00. That caused another cancellation and reissue of a new card.

 

[unclemick]

Yes - twice. 1983 A lot of charges in Cleveland. New card issued.

Second time some bogus internet charges in the early 2002 when I never charged on the net. Went to the bank and we used their computer to delete.

heh heh heh -

 

[Nords]

I'm curious as to how many of you this has happened to.

Once from a break-in at the beach parking lot, another time when I dropped my wallet in the parking lot and a passerby scooped it up.

Never had it taken electronically.

The hassle of resetting all the electronic payees after a theft is what keeps me from setting up more automated credit-card payments.

 

[Martha]

A few months ago I got "the call" from our cc company. They asked about a bunch of Napster charges. Not mine, they sent out new cards.

I kind of forgot about stuff on automatic payment. The vendors sent letters saying that we needed to give them a new card number. No problem.

I have no idea as to how they got the card number.

 

[Bimmerbill]

someone bought an airline ticket on my account a long time ago.
USAA replaced my CCs recently due to numbers being possibly compromized.

 

[cantlogin]

Someone from Texas had flowers delivered to a girl in Florida on Valentine's day. I had used the card to pay for a room in a first class hotel in Denton. Visa removed the charge with no problem.

 

[FinanceDude]

It happened to me 6 years ago. Someone charged $13,000 worth of stuff online in less than 24 hours. Capital One treated me like I was the criminal, they were very condescending and snippy about it.........

I got it cleared up, but told Capital One to pound sand.........

 

[Rustic23]

Yes, used it Frye's Electronics and then a bogus charge showed us. USAA took it off and reissued the card. Never had the card actually lifted.

 

[TromboneAl]

Citicard has a program that generates a card number for each purchase you make on the internet.
I use it for all on line purchases.
https://www.citibank.com/us/cards/vanpromo/cmc_pop/index2.htm

That's the same as ShopSafe. I had used that for a while. I generated a different number for each vendor. But the interface for doing that was slow and cumbersome. It was all cutesy, and looked like little card on the screen -- so you had to do a lot of scrolling. It also did not allow you to copy and paste, so keeping track of which numbers you used for what was inconvenient.


Also, the expiration max was one year, so I had to redo all the automatic payment vendors each year.

Any idea how the criminal got the number?

DW may have purchased a knitting pattern on an unsecured web site, but I'm looking into that now. Otherwise, no idea.

 

[Coach]

Once, at least 20 years ago, someone got an account I wasn't using regularly, changed the address on it, and went to town. The credit card company was very good about it.

Coach

 

[OAG]

Several year ago one of my cards was replaced "out of the blue" by a Credit Union. I suspect it was one of the "data stolen" incidents.

 

[lucija]

Twice... different card companies. First time I caught the charges, second time around I got a call from the card company to verify charges. Both times, it only took one phone conversation to clear the charges, close the account and order new cards - pretty painless.

Both times, they charged lots and lots of expensive stuff with the craziest one of them being authentic men (cowboy) crocodile boots for $2500 - considering that I am still somewhat of a Euro city brat and happen to be a female, yeah, just my style!

 

[TromboneAl]

I shoulda kept the card open -- the crook was spending less than my wife!

Henny Youngman?

 

[Koolau]

Twice I've received calls indicating that cards have been compromised from hacked internet accounts. So far, don't know of any actual fraudulent use of my accounts. Oddly enough, the first hack job was within a couple of weeks of my first on-line purchase. Can't say it gave me much confidence in on-line purchasing.

From some of the descriptions of the charges your various cards were used for, it would seem relatively easy to track down the culprits. (Not suggesting YOU should do this, but the credit card co. w/law enforcement). My understanding is that most credit card companies don't actually worry much about fraudulent charges. They simply write them off and pass the total cost on to all credit card users (well, those who actually pay interest, heh, heh.)

 

[Orchidflower]

Saks must have sent me a card, because a $400 charge showed up on it and I know it wasn't mine. All I can figure is it came to a place I lived and someone stole the new card? I do know that the notes at Equifax said "not correct signature," so they caught it before I did on my credit report.

 

[Elderdude]

Happened to me this last December. Someone used my card number to download music through Amazon. I picked up on it almost immediately online and called. The card was canceled and reissued and all charges for the downloads reversed. In most cases they were only for 99 cents. I spoke with someone in the card bank's fraud division who told me some teenagers are paid for leads on any successful hits they made through random entry of numbers. But I guess it never got that far, in my case.

 

[Disappointed]

Somebody used my "ATM card" with my pin number to withdraw 2x$200 in Las Vegas in January while I was travelling in Malaysia. How they got my pin number, I do not know. Supposedly the software detected the fraud, I called WFC when I got back and WFC reversed the charges and issued me a new ATM card.

mP

 

[bssc]

Twice. When I was in Australia, someone got my card I was using there and bought some airline tickets. Second time was last year when some establishment made some $19.99 charges to my Chase account, hoping that they would not be noticed. However, it was an AOR (App o Rama) card which I hadn't used after I spend the $100 opening credit.

In both cases, the charges were reversed and I got new plastic.

 

[Brat]

Cheap theif

Two days before my daughter's wedding she charged her reception at a fine hotel in San Jose on her Visa Card (let there be no doubt - we paid for the wedding, not the reception). The day before the wedding party went to Nordstroms to pick out last minute honeymoon necessities, put on Visa. On the way home she stopped to get her car washed, charged it on Visa. Shortly after arriving home Visa called to ask about a charge at Montgomery Ward, "Not typical of your spending pattern".. someone had stolen her number at the car wash!

Here we were on Friday afternoon with a canceled Visa, a Saturday wedding and honeymoon travel starting Sunday (which had been booked using the canceled Visa number). No problem they said, we are arranging to have a new card in your hands at the church. And they did just that.

If the car wash thief had charged at Tiffany's it wouldn't have been noticed by Visa's computer.

 

[calmloki]

So does the card company eat the fraudulent charges or are they back charged to the company that took the card? Vaguely remember getting a bad charge at the repair shop and having the card company stick us because we hadn't called for an authorization #. Gee - (blink blink) how can the card companies manage to eat all those bad charges? (blink blink)

 

[Brat]

I think they do if the charge meets certain criteria. Because my daughter still had her credit card in hand and the Montgomery Ward charge was a store charge (although modest in the scheme of things) I am sure the back-charged MW to give them incentive to nab the clerk who was in cahoots with the thief.

 

[Disappointed]

Had lunch with a special agent from an oil company yesterday, he told us that his company absorbed $125,000 woth of fraudulent transactions last year at one of our gas stations. This is the highest that they ever absorbed for any one gas station.

Credit card fraud is a pretty nasty problem, a credit card processor computer system was compromised recently, millions of credit card numbers were stolen. The only way to minimize fraud is to go pin based transaction. It will not eliminate the problem but large scale fraud will become much harder.

mP