Recurring charge fraud on CapitalOne MasterCard

[Reach]

I wanted to share an experience with fraud on our CapitalOne MasterCard. It was frustrating to say the least.

We had two fraud charges hit one of our cards in mid-Jan (1/13) for Dinnerly and Ancestry.com. Called it in and Capital One created fraud investigation and removed the charges as is their normal practice. We are traveling internationally for several months, so the new card that was sent remained un-activated.

Almost two weeks later (1/25), another Dinnerly charge cropped up for the new (un-activated) card! I called again and went through the normal fraud routine. I asked them not to send a new card, since we are traveling and we'll request it when we're back in the US.

Another week goes by, and there is the next Dinnerly charge (2/1) for yet another card number. Frustrated by now, we did the fraud routine and then the agent said that MasterCard has agreements with several companies (Dinnerly being one) that accepts charges billed to the same subscription, even if the card number has changed.

Presumably, the fraudsters have this figured out! They (CapitalOne) said they would put in a request to (Dinnerly? MasterCard?) asking them to stop the subscription. Apparently, there was nothing else they could do about it!

Now you can guess what happens next (2/15), a new charge for a different $$ amount. I think they got around it by starting a new subscription in their account. A CapitalOne agent had said earlier that it gets harder to take care of a rogue subscription if the $$ amounts change.

So, I call and go through the drill. Each time after the first occurrence, I had asked them not to send a new card which is noted. However, I noticed that each charge had a new 4-digit card number showing up online in our account with the next new fraud charge. So, I asked if the new cards are automatically generated when an old card is canceled. The answer is yes. Didn't matter that I didn't have them shipped.

It seemed like we were in an endless fraud loop that no one could do anything about. All of this was taking place internationally (4 times total) and was no fun at this point. My only solution was to take my husband off of the account (it was his card) or cancel the account all together!

Finally, an agent suggested just dis-allowing any charges from Dinnerly on our account. I don't even know what Dinnerly is and obviously won't be using them now or in the future after all of this, so we tried it. It seemed to work! It's been a few days over the two week mark and no charge.

In summary, I find it is crazy that the trio of a vendor (Dinnerly), MasterCard and CapitalOne has such an huge fraud loophole.

Incredibly, there was no little to no recourse for CapitalOne to deal with it in a subscription scenario.

There was no good option for the consumer, besides recurring fraud protection and a bit of hassle & stress. If it were not Dinnerly and something that I needed to use, where I wouldn't want to block the vendor, I'd have to cancel the account.

Part of this is a vent, but I posted to let others know of this fraud situation so if it occurs you might be able to steer it off more quickly than over the course of several months.

 

[braumeister]

Finally, an agent suggested just dis-allowing any charges from Dinnerly on our account.

I've never heard of blocking a particular company from a credit card. Is that something you can do yourself or do the card fraud people have to do it?

Anyway, that's a miserable situation; glad you finally got it corrected.

 

[Reach]

I've never heard of blocking a particular company from a credit card. Is that something you can do yourself or do the card fraud people have to do it?

Anyway, that's a miserable situation; glad you finally got it corrected.

I've never heard of a block either. The CapitalOne fraud agent had to do it.

Thanks, hope it is over now.



PS During this time, I had issues with my 2-factor authentication internationally and couldn't access my online CapitalOne account to monitor the fraud on the website.

That is a whole other story. I've read the good threads on this forum about maintaining 2-factor authentification while traveling. However, I didn't come up with a solution in time for this year's travel. Again, no fun.

 

[swakyaby]

I have put a block on a merchant who has been charging me monthly for a service I no longer subscribe to. Unfortunately, the charge continues to occur. The credit card company is Fidelity visa. I was told by Fidelity card member service that sometimes Visa allows the charge to go through despite a block if the merchant has a history of recurring charges. () I requested the card be cancelled and a new card with a different account number be issued. To my astonishment, Fidelity card member services said that the merchant might still manage to place a recurring charge on my new card just because Visa may allow it. It appears the best course of action, in my case, is to cancel the card altogether without replacement. Placing a block on a merchant has proven fruitless.

 

[cathy63]

Visa and MasterCard (and I assume Amex and Discover) have been automatically transferring subscriptions and other charges from regular billers over to your new card for a few years now. This is so you don't have to go and update every single website for every biller you have on auto-pay every time you get a new card number, and it prevents you from having declined charges and getting hit with late payment fees. Usually it's a good thing, but you have definitely discovered the downside. I hope the payee block keeps working!

 

[jazz4cash]

I’ve had 3 instances of blocking unauthorized recurring debits to a checking account. Each time I contacted the merchant first. I think there is a contact number listed for each debit. One company credited the fraudulent charge back but the others required contacting Bank of America. They reimbursed me as well. It would’ve been extremely inconvenient to close or freeze my checking account but I wouldn’t hesitate to freeze or cancel a credit card.

 

[Aerides]

I had to do this with one of my amex cards. I had a recurring amazon charge that wasn't mine (for sure, I don't use this particular card on amazon). After the 3rd charge they told me the only way to prevent it was to block the merchant at the account level.

Since this left my other cards with them ok, that worked.

But replacement cards allowing continued recurring charges has been a thing for a while. In general, it's good for everyone - when you replace your card you don't have to update it with starbucks, netflix, hulu, toll-pass-thingy, game/magazine subscriptions, etc. - they keep using the old number and the CC company applies it to the repl-up number. The card number is just one of many linked to the account, it's just a proxy really. It's only an issue when the recurring charge is a fraud, and ... yeah, harder to get around.

 

[Reach]

I have put a block on a merchant who has been charging me monthly for a service I no longer subscribe to. Unfortunately, the charge continues to occur. The credit card company is Fidelity visa. I was told by Fidelity card member service that sometimes Visa allows the charge to go through despite a block if the merchant has a history of recurring charges. () I requested the card be cancelled and a new card with a different account number be issued. To my astonishment, Fidelity card member services said that the merchant might still manage to place a recurring charge on my new card just because Visa may allow it. It appears the best course of action, in my case, is to cancel the card altogether without replacement. Placing a block on a merchant has proven fruitless.

Sounds like the same situation I just had with MasterCard allowing recurring charges through with a new card number.

If the merchant block didn't work, my only recourse would be to cancel the card. Crazy.

 

[Reach]

I’ve had 3 instances of blocking unauthorized recurring debits to a checking account. Each time I contacted the merchant first. I think there is a contact number listed for each debit. One company credited the fraudulent charge back but the others required contacting Bank of America. They reimbursed me as well. It would’ve been extremely inconvenient to close or freeze my checking account but I wouldn’t hesitate to freeze or cancel a credit card.

Glad that you were able to get reimbursed for charges to a checking account!


Agree that the most direct way is to start with the merchant. However, with a fraud charge it might not be possible without knowledge of the original account.

 

[Reach]

It happened again. At the one month mark a new, recurring charge came onto our account from Dinnerly.

Seems like the Capital One block on our card for the merchant Dinnerly did not work.

Finally, a Capital One agent reached out to the merchant with me on the line to try and track down the false account. Not straightforward, since we don't know what email or other information was used to set up the Dinnerly account.

Dinnerly now has to investigate and will have to contact their payment department to trace the credit card.