Fraudulent charge on Fidelity Visa card :(

[Live And Learn]

I have text alerts set up on all my credit cards. There was a charge today for $6.98. I called Fidelity Visa and was told that I will have a "conditional credit" on my account within 10 days and that an agent would be assigned. My new cards will be here in a few days.

I had a fraudulent charge with Chase Visa last year. When I called I got "yes ma'am, the charge will be removed, thank you for calling us ! your new card will be in the mail immediately !".

I feel like I'm in for an unpleasant experience but I hope I'm wrong and that it's only my current "bad mood" that has me being so negative.

Thoughts ? comments ? similar experiences ?

 

[FIREmenow]

I go through this every 6 months or so since I use my card so much. It has become routine for me. Fidelity Visa also. Never a problem, although not with the new servicer yet.

When they tell me the replacement card will take days to get to me, I always tell them that is not acceptable and they overnight the replacements.

 

[LOL!]

bogus charges every now and then are a fact of life nowadays. Teach your kids how to deal with them, too.

 

[euro]

I have text alerts set up on all my credit cards. There was a charge today for $6.98. I called Fidelity Visa and was told that I will have a "conditional credit" on my account within 10 days and that an agent would be assigned. My new cards will be here in a few days.

I had a fraudulent charge with Chase Visa last year. When I called I got "yes ma'am, the charge will be removed, thank you for calling us ! your new card will be in the mail immediately !".

I feel like I'm in for an unpleasant experience but I hope I'm wrong and that it's only my current "bad mood" that has me being so negative.

Thoughts ? comments ? similar experiences ?

Yes, probably only the bad mood..... I have had fine experiences along these lines with Fidelity Visa.

 

[O2Bfree]

DH had two fraudulent charges on his REI MasterCard just last night. The first one went through, but the second was blocked and MC send him a fraud alert text. Both were in Florida (we're in the Seattle area). Very unnerving indeed! Thank goodness for the alert functions cards offer these days.

 

[MRG]

I have text alerts set up on all my credit cards. There was a charge today for $6.98. I called Fidelity Visa and was told that I will have a "conditional credit" on my account within 10 days and that an agent would be assigned. My new cards will be here in a few days.

I had a fraudulent charge with Chase Visa last year. When I called I got "yes ma'am, the charge will be removed, thank you for calling us ! your new card will be in the mail immediately !".

I feel like I'm in for an unpleasant experience but I hope I'm wrong and that it's only my current "bad mood" that has me being so negative.

Thoughts ? comments ? similar experiences ?

I had a charge that was suspect with Fidelity Visa. The merchant could not tell if they double billed me. Fidelity Visa was OK, had to wait two days to determine the actual charge.

I had multiple ones on the Fidelity American Express. Your bad experience is a huge step up in service.

FIA could not get it straight the fraudulent charges were coming from an account that was closed! I had to file dispute charges month after month.

 

[brett]

What's to feel bad about?

Your card was compromised. You called, they reversed the charge and are taking steps to preclude your account number from being compromised a second or third time.

Happens to lots of people many times each day. Unfortunately.

The only PITA is if you have recurring automatic charges that you need to chase down and revise.

 

[Live And Learn]

Good point in the recurring charges. Thankfully this is a relatively new card and I hadn't used that way yet!

I guess I was spoiled by the response I got with Chase. Could just be a matter of the agents personalities

I am glad to hear that there were no issues resolving this when others had similar experiences

Cheers

 

[MichaelB]

Well, I just got off the phone with Fidelity Visa. New bad charges so they cancelled the card and are sending a replacement.

This is the 4th time this year for Fido. They must be getting tired of this - I know I sure am.

 

[ponyboy]

pfft...if I had a $1 for every time my credit card number was stolen...id have like 12 bucks.

 

[kcowan]

The only PITA is if you have recurring automatic charges that you need to chase down and revise.

Some cards will continue to honor pre-authorized charges until you get a chance to change them.

 

[W2R]

I go through this every 6 months or so

bogus charges every now and then are a fact of life nowadays. Teach your kids how to deal with them, too.

DH had two fraudulent charges on his REI MasterCard just last night.

Well, I just got off the phone with Fidelity Visa. New bad charges so they cancelled the card and are sending a replacement.

This is the 4th time this year for Fido. They must be getting tired of this - I know I sure am.

pfft...if I had a $1 for every time my credit card number was stolen...id have like 12 bucks.

My goodness! I guess I have been lucky. I got my first CC in over a decade, about a year or two ago I guess. I check the charges online at least once a week or more, and haven't ever had this happen.

Pretty unnerving! Oh, but those rewards points are so seductive, so I guess I'll keep it for now....

 

[Live And Learn]

My goodness! I guess I have been lucky. I got my first CC in over a decade, about a year or two ago I guess. I check the charges online at least once a week or more, and haven't ever had this happen.

Pretty unnerving! Oh, but those rewards points are so seductive, so I guess I'll keep it for now....

Me to W2R. The last time I had a bad charge was on my Chase Visa over 3 years ago, after having the card for 25 years ! I've had the FIDO card less than a year. I'm glad they immediately cancelled and replaced the card with a new number. Once your card number gets out once who knows how far it can get ! I love my text alerts on new charges. Criminals can't get far with me !

 

[COcheesehead]

I've had cards replaced at least 4 times in the last couple of years. I know my liability is zero, but I hate the hassle of it.
I use the notification feature of the Fidelity card, so every time it's used I get an instant email. Makes me feel a bit better.

 

[REWahoo]

I've had cards replaced at least 4 times in the last couple of years. I know my liability is zero, but I hate the hassle of it.

+1

I got a call from Chase yesterday asking me if I'd just made a $300 purchase at QVC. No.

Card canceled, new one on the way. That's the second time this year.

 

[O2Bfree]

Back in the early 80s I had a card stolen from my wallet that I'd left in my car overnight, after one of my passengers had left a door unlocked. The thief took no cash, only the card. Because I didn't use the card much, a couple weeks passed before I noticed it was gone. Called the CC company in a panic, and my heart sank as the rep read though the list of charges. TVs, stereo equipment, clothes, expensive dinners and eye-popping bar tabs --someone had a good ol' time! They spent twice over my credit limit before the card was denied. I couldn't figure that out, except that it was the week before Christmas and maybe the CC companies were giving people a "break" by letting them run over their limits?

Anyways, I didn't have to pay a dime for the fraudulent charges, and never heard anything more about it. With the interest rates the CC companies get, I wonder how many fraud cases they bother to pursue?

 

[Ronnieboy]

My goodness! I guess I have been lucky. I got my first CC in over a decade, about a year or two ago I guess. I check the charges online at least once a week or more, and haven't ever had this happen.

Pretty unnerving! Oh, but those rewards points are so seductive, so I guess I'll keep it for now....

I thought I was lucky with that too, 15+ years with the Costco Amex and no fraudulent charges or having to get new cards.

Within 3 months of the new Costo Citi card, two attempted charges in FL. Haven't used my new Visa card any differently than I used my AMEX card, so I didn't feel that I had used it where numbers could be easily stolen (sketchy website ordering or out of eye shot restaurant paying, etc)

I have been told that there are computer programs that randomly 'guess' credit card numbers and try to initiate a charge. It must be easier with MC and Visa to do that vs. AMEX?!?

 

[jonat]

Actually, Amex numbers are much easier to guess as six of the digits are usually the same (starts with 37, next to last 4 digits 1000). Guessing numbers isn't very useful, but numbers leak in so many different ways. I have had my Costco Amex card replaced four times over the years due to fraud. Costco Visa not yet.

More widespread use of tokenized NFC payment (Apple Pay, etc.) and EMV chips with encryption will help some, but not entirely. (EMV chips are not encrypted themselves, the vendor's terminals have to do the encryption.) Online payments are a weak point, but there are good options starting to spread that don't require entering card numbers.

Your vigilance is also important. Check for "skimmers" at gas pumps and credit card terminals. (See https://krebsonsecurity.com/all-about-skimmers/) Don't let merchants write down the CVV code (3 or 4 digit security code from your card) on a slip. Sign up for automated alerts from your bank for charges over a certain amount, and reconcile your statement monthly,.

 

[MRG]

Back in the early 80s I had a card stolen from my wallet that I'd left in my car overnight, after one of my passengers had left a door unlocked. The thief took no cash, only the card. Because I didn't use the card much, a couple weeks passed before I noticed it was gone. Called the CC company in a panic, and my heart sank as the rep read though the list of charges. TVs, stereo equipment, clothes, expensive dinners and eye-popping bar tabs --someone had a good ol' time! They spent twice over my credit limit before the card was denied. I couldn't figure that out, except that it was the week before Christmas and maybe the CC companies were giving people a "break" by letting them run over their limits?

Buddy of mine worked in IT at a company that did CC authorizations. He'd always said the week before Christmas and a couple days after they had issues with the volume. Based on the load they would up the default CC limit just to keep their systems up, i.e. no real checking occurred.

 

[Walt34]

With the interest rates the CC companies get, I wonder how many fraud cases they bother to pursue?

As a former fraud investigator, I can answer that. The answer is "not many". Most of the time the charge is kicked back to the merchant. I talked to a regional security guy for Visa one time (mid 1990's) and he said their fraud losses were less than one-tenth of one percent of their profits. Essentially, the electric bill was larger.

Whether to pursue fraud charges is a business decision, not a legal or moral one. Is there a realistic probability of recovering the loss? How much will it cost to file charges in terms of time, personnel cost, travel costs, etc.? Most of the time these cc thieves have a net worth of about $1.98 so it isn't worth going after them for money they don't have.

 

[Live And Learn]

As a former fraud investigator, I can answer that. The answer is "not many". Most of the time the charge is kicked back to the merchant. I talked to a regional security guy for Visa one time (mid 1990's) and he said their fraud losses were less than one-tenth of one percent of their profits. Essentially, the electric bill was larger.

Whether to pursue fraud charges is a business decision, not a legal or moral one. Is there a realistic probability of recovering the loss? How much will it cost to file charges in terms of time, personnel cost, travel costs, etc.? Most of the time these cc thieves have a net worth of about $1.98 so it isn't worth going after them for money they don't have.

That is interesting. Is there any possibility of the crook not being paid if the charge is still in "pending" status ? Its one of the best features of instant text messages. I get to alert the fraud departments quickly.

 

[jonat]

If the crook used the card to buy a product, they have the product (most of the time - see below) and it's the merchant that may eat the fraud. For card-present transactions, if your card has an EMV chip but the merchant processed it as a swipe transaction, they're liable for the fraud. Otherwise the bank assumes liability, but as Walt34 says, it's a cost of doing business and they don't usually pursue it.

I did once have my Costco Amex card number stolen and used to purchase an airplane ticket (From Mexico to Spain!) for some weeks in the future. Amex caught it well in advance and I assume that the airline canceled the ticket.

 

[Rustward]

Buddy of mine worked in IT at a company that did CC authorizations. He'd always said the week before Christmas and a couple days after they had issues with the volume. Based on the load they would up the default CC limit just to keep their systems up, i.e. no real checking occurred.

I have w*rked in two of those CC authorization places (one with B and America in the name and in the "Don't Leave H... W... It..." Centurian place. I never heard of the practice of just indiscriminately increasing credit limits . . . and there are some things that I do not know, so this may have happened. My involvement with the aforementioned organizations ended in the early 00's, and things may be very different now.

If I had to do this with resources that might be constrained in "peak season" (i.e. you do not have enough capacity to check every authorization to the level that you would like to), I would develop an algorithm for which the input is 0) negative rating of customer or cardholder, 1) current system capacity (current workload on the system), 2) dollar amount of the authorization, 3) quick check of account history . . . and some other factors that I have not thought about.

I guess one would call this an "adaptive system" that does as much is it can using the capacity that is available to it.

 

[MRG]

I have w*rked in two of those CC authorization places (one with B and America in the name and in the "Don't Leave H... W... It..." Centurian place. I never heard of the practice of just indiscriminately increasing credit limits . . . and there are some things that I do not know, so this may have happened. My involvement with the aforementioned organizations ended in the early 00's, and things may be very different now.

If I had to do this with resources that might be constrained in "peak season" (i.e. you do not have enough capacity to check every authorization to the level that you would like to), I would develop an algorithm for which the input is 0) negative rating of customer or cardholder, 1) current system capacity (current workload on the system), 2) dollar amount of the authorization, 3) quick check of account history . . . and some other factors that I have not thought about.

I guess one would call this an "adaptive system" that does as much is it can using the capacity that is available to it.

This was in the 80s under CICS. The application had a minimum charge amount to check variable(in CICS Shared memory so easily addressable) . The application looked in memory to see if the transaction amount was above the default limit. If so it was okay. This occured before it read any data or got into the particular card agreement(they were a service provider to CC companies). If transaction input got higher than the rate of service they'd zap the value up. Effectively upping their ability to process transactions. Not sure if this was known to the management or their customers, sometimes systems guys, used to anyway, have tricks the business may or may not have been aware of.

 

[Rustward]

This was in the 80s under CICS. The application had a minimum charge amount to check variable(in CICS Shared memory so easily addressable) . The application looked in memory to see if the transaction amount was above the default limit. If so it was okay. This occured before it read any data or got into the particular card agreement(they were a service provider to CC companies). If transaction input got higher than the rate of service they'd zap the value up. Effectively upping their ability to process transactions. Not sure if this was known to the management or their customers, sometimes systems guys, used to anyway, have tricks the business may or may not have been aware of.

Understand. Things were different in the 80's. There were many more constraints to work around and more risk was taken. There is always a balance of taking more risk vs do we do it perfectly with absolutely no risk to the organization at the expense of doing fewer transactions per second or rejecting some that we could authorize with a high degree of safety (and thus pissing off the cardholder).., I think that is one of the aspects that made the work more interesting. Some people just could not "get it" -- the variable part of it -- some saw everything in black and white.

When you are a cardholder at a card reader terminal, you think in terms of "why does this take so long?" (perhaps a very few seconds).

If you are on the other end you are just looking at hundreds or sometimes thousands of authorizations per second.

I have a 32 year CICS history.