View Full Version : Credit Card Fraud - Yikes!
I like to think I'm careful about things, but clearly I'm not careful enough. I look at my monthly credit card statements, but I guess if the balance is about where I expect it to be, I don't always scrutinize all the transactions. So I paid my November Chase statement without much thought. Last night, I opened December's statement, and it was $500. more than I expected, which got my attention. I looked at all the transactions and they were fine. Then I pulled out my November statement, and there were 2 items that were not mine. One was from a watch company in MO for $329 and the other was from a moped dealership in MI for $400. We don't wear watches or drive mopeds, so we were very confident that the charges weren't ours. I called Chase, and while I expected it to be a nightmare experience, it was reasonably pleasant and efficient. They are cancelling the account and opening a new one for us. They told me to deduct the charges from my balance and their fraud dept will be investigating them.
I find it curious that there weren't a bunch more transactions posted, but I guess that's just something to be pleased about. Lesson learned: reviewing one's statements requires more than giving them a cursory glance. You can bet I'll be paying much closer attention from now on!
Someone probably stole your number @ a point-of-sale (clerk) and then went home and charged some stuff they wanted.
I used to work in credit cards at 2 banks. Most fraud is small time stuff. Not the big entire identity stolen and credit ruined scenarios you hear about all the time.
The one time my credit card was messed with it was a point-of-sale clerk at a zoo gift shop. Got him fired (it wasn't his first bit of trouble). Noticed the other day our church credit card (also chase) had a fraud charge for video games. Agree that chase was quick to resolve.
When I worked in banking the most a person was responsible for in fraudulent transactions was $ 50 and most banks waived that fee. Credit cards are a big money maker and card issuers and don't want to have the government involved in them anymore then they already are. So they want to keep their good customers happy.
I heard of a case where some waitperson had liberally added to the tip. Stupid him, because the customer (a friend of mine) knew the owner of the restaurant. But it was good she'd looked carefully at her statements.
We had CC fraud too, but in our case the company called and asked us whether we were in Barcelona eating a $4000 meal. Um, no. It probably helped that we'd filled up the car the day before in Phoenix. We got new cards in about 5 days. Oddly, they blocked my card this year without calling me first. We'd been to NYC for several days and were back in CO, and my card was blocked from filling gas about a mile from our house at a station I often use. This, after I'd bought some wine at the liquor store which we commonly visit in an amount we commonly spend there. I'd have thought they would block it while we were in NYC, esp since my parents bought the airline tickets and paid for the hotel on their card, so even though we gave them our portion it wouldn't have shown up on our card. What looks more suspicious: random meals, alcohol and gifts in NYC when the cardholder lives in CO and there is no record on the card of airline tickets, or an alcohol purchase and gas station purchase in the same zip code as the billing address, in similar amounts every month or few weeks or so at the exact same businesses? I'm glad they have an eye out but it was a tiny bit embarrassing to have my card declined while trying to get gas. I suppose that was a bit better than the liquor store, though.
Thanks, Bunnys and Float On. It's reassuring to hear that this might be the end of it.
Thanks Free & Rosie too - you were posting as I was posting.
When I recently tried to place an online order with Hotter Shoes in the UK, I couln't get the transaction to go through. I tried 5 times, and then finally called Hotter. They said that it happens all the time and my CC probably has a block on international transactions and that I just needed to call the CC company. I think it's unfortunate that my attempts yielded a dumb error message instead of a meaningful message about common issues with international transactions. I also got a fraud alert several years ago when I was trying to buy a couple of paintings from a small gallery. The woman, who was an artist, could not figure out how to process the charge transaction. After repeated efforts, we agreed that I would write a check, and she would make sure she got whatever she had done with my card cleared out when her more tech-savvy associate returned to the gallery. When I got home, I had a fraud alert call for a $99,000 transaction attempt which was over my credit limit! (The paintings cost about $450). When I called my CC company, they confirmed that the vendor had indeed voided the transaction after the fact! So it seems that there are fraud filters, but they aren't as sophisticated as one might expect. Based on my buying history, the Hotter Shoes transaction should seem compatible with my profile, but the Moped shop in MI should not.
I find it interesting that none of my CC's bat an eyelash at my Honduras transactions. I'm glad, in a way, as I am truly down here, but still... I do log in and check my accounts pretty much every other day or so, and also check CreditKarma.com to make sure no one is opening any accounts I don't know about.
Good reminder to keep on top of this stuff. When my daughter was attending university, she lived in a four room suite and one of the other pairs of students were working from their dorm room as order takers for some mail order company. They used the customer credit card numbers to order things for themselves, but in relatively small amounts so to decrease the likelihood that the mail order customers would notice. They got away with it for months until someone noticed (I think that it was a UPS guy) and made inquiries about all of the packages that were being delivered to their room.
HumboldtGurl
1-2-13, 4:16pm
Oh sorry you had to go through that!
We had our card # stolen three times in the last five years. In every case, the card was still in our possession when the charges appeared. Scary!
I heard recently that if you don't hit "clear" after using your card at a gas pump, and a thief can come in right after you pull out and bring up a receipt with your #. Ugh.
I heard recently that if you don't hit "clear" after using your card at a gas pump, and a thief can come in right after you pull out and bring up a receipt with your #. Ugh.
That sounds the stuff of urban legend to me...
I had a similar experience with a point-of-sale clerk who then ordered several tecchie things to be sent to his home! Not too smart! I caught it when going over the bill and the card company immediately took the charges off my bill.
Another time I was travelling and forgetfully entered the wrong zip code at the gas station. That's a mistake I won't make again! My card was cancelled and I had to do the rest of my trip with cash, which was interesting.
gimmethesimplelife
1-2-13, 10:46pm
UGGGGH credit cards.....I remember once thinking that these pieces of plastic were so cool and so adult. Fast forward more years than I'd like to admit and I'm glad to be getting them out of my life. My horror story is not quite the same as above but does involve fraud. A little over a year ago I was pickpocketed on a crowded bus in Phoenix and when I realized I no longer had my wallet (I was home by then), I ran to the phone to cancel everything - lesson here for me is don't carry anything you don't really need that day. When I called Chase - who held the debit card my Arizona State Unemployment Benefits went onto - I found that just a few minutes earlier, someone had attempted to charge over $400 on this card - good thing the balance was only .96 cents. So I cancelled that card out and had a new one sent to me. Two months pass by and then in the mail comes a notice from Target telling me I had written two checks that had bounced on January first last year. For a total amount of $600 plus. Yep, identity theft. I called the police who filed a report, and then I called Target and Target I must say was very nice about things and took care of it. Makes me wonder how common this is and how much their loss is every year due to this. I did get a call from the police in Tempe, Arizona two months later that they had found my ID in a suspect's wallet so I guess whoever did this got busted for pulling it somewhere else on someone else.....Glad to be getting credit out of my life but of course the same can happen with debit cards, too. Very creepy, and I think it's great that we here are all checking our accounts on a regular basis.....Rob
That sounds the stuff of urban legend to me...
This is urban legend. You will notice the receipt only prints the last 4 digits of your card number. We take credit cards at the visitors center where I volunteer. When we have to correct a mistake made the card is pulled up by the transaction sequence number and than the last four digits appear. We correct a credit card purchase by the sequence number and the last 4 digits of the card. We never see the whole card number except when it is in our hand while sliding it through the machine.
The sequence and last 4 digits only stay available for 12 hours to correct mistakes.
Rob, I had waitstaff at a restaurant near the Philadelphia Convention Center lift my wallet out of my purse. So thankful I checked my purse before getting up to leave the table. Taught me to always carry a purse that closes. I remembered the waiter dropping something, either a menu or napkin, onto the bench next to me where my purse was. He heard me call my husband to cancel everything so he only made off with less than $50 cash (and no tip on the table). He actually took the time to mail me back my wallet after I got home with a poorly worded note claiming to be from the police who found the wallet. Nothing missing out of the wallet other than paper cash, he didn't bother with the 37cents.
As a side note I was flying home the next morning, all I had to prove who I was was thankfully a friend on the same flight, my show paperwork with my name, and some business cards and my sad story about having my wallet stolen. This was the year before 9-11.
I was really glad I noticed the wallet missing so quickly....identity theft and the mess I've heard people have to deal with is not something I'm interested in.
HumboldtGurl
1-3-13, 2:16pm
This is urban legend. .
Whew! Thanks for the clarification.
gimmethesimplelife
1-3-13, 11:55pm
Rob, I had waitstaff at a restaurant near the Philadelphia Convention Center lift my wallet out of my purse. So thankful I checked my purse before getting up to leave the table. Taught me to always carry a purse that closes. I remembered the waiter dropping something, either a menu or napkin, onto the bench next to me where my purse was. He heard me call my husband to cancel everything so he only made off with less than $50 cash (and no tip on the table). He actually took the time to mail me back my wallet after I got home with a poorly worded note claiming to be from the police who found the wallet. Nothing missing out of the wallet other than paper cash, he didn't bother with the 37cents.
As a side note I was flying home the next morning, all I had to prove who I was was thankfully a friend on the same flight, my show paperwork with my name, and some business cards and my sad story about having my wallet stolen. This was the year before 9-11.
I was really glad I noticed the wallet missing so quickly....identity theft and the mess I've heard people have to deal with is not something I'm interested in.Float On, that is absolutely unreal. As a longer term server than I care to admit to, I have heard of such things happening - and also of the skimming of credit card numbers, but I (thank goodness) have never worked anywhere where I was aware of it happening at least while I was there. What total (bleep) nerve. The flip of this that I can say is I can remember over the years many stories of guests leaving valuables behind on the table and of servers running after them to track them down and return their property to them. I'm really sorry this happened to you - glad it happened before 9/11 and the resulting stickiness of airport security so that you could get on a plane and get on with your business. And also glad that this did not escalate into a total identity theft nightmare.....luckily in my case Target has been the only business to contact me in regards to fraud. Good that we both caught it quick, too! Rob
oh Rob now you got me onto that creditkarma site. I've never actually seen my credit "score" but have in the past seen only a report.
I am annoyed that one of those values on creditkarma, the one they use for insurance, rates me as only "fair." Why is that I'd like to know? I am "fairly" likely to make a claim? I think not. I can think of one, perhaps two, auto claims I've made in 24 years, both were for a vandalized auto (a broken antennae.) We've never made a claim on house insurance.
I don't get it. But in the end won't worry about it. I don't care what my credit score is expect for setting insurance rates. Hmm, I will have to try DH's score, wonder if that will change the insurance rating.
rosarugosa
1-5-13, 11:53pm
IL: Sometimes your insurance profile is influenced by where you live and the rate of claims in your area, and not just by your own personal characteristics.
IL: Sometimes your insurance profile is influenced by where you live and the rate of claims in your area, and not just by your own personal characteristics.
When I bought my house (about two miles away from where I was living), I was surprised to find my auto insurance increase at the new address. Before I bought the house, I had to park on a busy city street; at the house I parked in a locked garage at the end of a 60-foot driveway. But my insurance went up, to reflect the increased loss experience in the 'hood. Yes, sometimes it's not all about us.
IL: Sometimes your insurance profile is influenced by where you live and the rate of claims in your area, and not just by your own personal characteristics.
I wondered about that. We live in a high crime neighborhood. But even when my car was stolen I didn't file a claim because we had liability only insurance on it. Oh well.
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