Have You Ever Had Your Credit Card # Stolen?

[JP.mpls]

W2R,
I'm glad your experience with fraud activity on your debit card worked out well. I see no reason to have a debit card, and take the chance that my bank would not handle this situation properly.

I prefer to use a cash back Visa card, and pay it off in full each month.

Take care,

JP

 

[martyp]

Last year I left my credit card at a restaurant at about 2pm. I picked it up at 5pm. By that time my credit card number was "out there". The bank called me the next day reporting some unusual activity and I cancelled the card and got a new one. I had the number stolen once many years ago which is why I am on my bank's watch list. My bank does a very good job picking up unusual activity.

 

[mickj]

penfed is sending me a new card, I didn't lose mine, it looks like it must have been part of the lastest batch stolen from Global Payments Inc

anyone else?

 

[Ronstar]

I had mine compromised a few months ago. I got a call from the credit card company reporting unusual charges - to an online sex hotline, and to an online florist. Jokingly I told the credit card company that there was no way that I would order flowers. They cleared the charges and sent me a new card. Then I had to reschedule all of my automatic charges.It was a real PITA.

 

[MichaelB]

I had mine compromised a few months ago. I got a call from the credit card company reporting unusual charges - to an online sex hotline, and to an online florist. Jokingly I told the credit card company that there was no way that I would order flowers. They cleared the charges and sent me a new card. Then I had to reschedule all of my automatic charges.It was a real PITA.

I don't think credit card companies have a sense of humor. The automatic charges update is a real PITA - and after the third time it happened to me I changed cards from USAA to Fidelity Visa.

 

[Sarah in SC]

This is one way that using Mint has helped give me some peace of mind. Because all my transactions are listed when I check on my phone or iPad, I feel like I can catch stuff right away rather than when I happen to log on to one of the various financial institutions.

 

[Rustward]

I don't think credit card companies have a sense of humor. The automatic charges update is a real PITA - and after the third time it happened to me I changed cards from USAA to Fidelity Visa.

Changing the card issuing bank won't necessarily insulate from these data breaches at processors. The processor is the link between the merchant and the issuing bank. Generally a merchant chooses one processor to send all their authorizations (customer charges) through. The processor passes the authorization on to the card issuing bank. Communication from the card issuing bank back to the merchant is also through the processor.

And neither will using only "trusted" merchants, or brick and mortar stores only, or a particular flavor of card (except for possibly private label cards that are accepted only at one merchant, like Sears, Target, etc.), because all authorizations go through a processor.

Processors are targets because of the volume of authorizations that they handle (many per second). I don't know the hit ratio for stolen card info (the percentage of sets of cardholder info that crooks can actually use to steal) but it is pretty low, so they (the crooks) need lots of data.