Help me out here. Someone apparently got a hold of my

[rzemanfl]

credit card information, but instead of charging merchandise, they charged things like memberships to Internet auction sites and a trial subscription to the New York Times (delivered to my house!!!). The biggest charge was less than $35.00, the rest (around six or seven) were all under $3.00. What gives? Why would anyone do that? What was in it for them?

The card is now history, but I am wondering what in the world happened. They used a CompuServe email account (not mine) as the email address.

[liberal N proud]

1. Did you call the Credit Card company?

Report your card stolen immediately and contest all the charges.

You should only be liable for $100.00

[rzemanfl]

5. Yes, right away and the card no longer exists. n/t

[lisa58]

2. They try low purchases to see if the card works...

...I saw a special on it on one of the magazine shows early last year - just so happened it was the same time two of my credit cards were "compromised". No charges, but they tried.

[rzemanfl]

9. Wouldn't they know the card worked by using it just once?

I probably would have missed one charge of two or three bucks.

[lisa58]

13. apparently, large, international purchases for electronics...

...are what credit card security flags as suspicious and you will get a call to verify if you made the purchase (which is what happened to me).

The small charges are to see if a card works, if it's maxed out and if they can get away with making charges on it.

[cbayer]

3. Is someone angry with you?

This reminds me of childhood pranks when we would have pizzas delivered to someone's house.

:shrug:

[The Hope Mobile]

10. like an ex who could be frustrated?

Can't they trace the email address??

[rzemanfl]

16. My ex and I split up thirty-three years ago. I think she has

calmed down. I don't have the full email they used, just that it was at cs.com.

[cbayer]

17. But it is someone who knows your address, right?

I tend to think this is someone who knows you.

:scared:

[rzemanfl]

19. They could have gotten that from an insecure website. I

actually suspect that it was from the on-line pharmacy service my health insurance provides. They apparently had my phone number too, which again could have been gotten from a website.

[The Hope Mobile]

29. Yeah, hopefully after 32 yrs . . .

Hmmm. It all seems a little unusual to me. Good luck with it.

[Stephanie]

4. They do that to test the card.

That's what the cc company told me when mine was stolen. They run a few small charges to see if it works. They'll run the bigger charges next, tho I assume you've cancelled it, right?

[rzemanfl]

6. It is totally gone. It doesn't even show up when I access my

accounts at the bank's website. That "see if it works" explanation doesn't make much sense to me. They run the risk of my noticing the small charges, as I did.

[Stephanie]

7. Well, if you hadn't noticed, what then?

They'd go to town.

[rzemanfl]

12. They could have just "gone to town" right away, although they

would have needed to go to small, inexpensive towns. Also, why have the New York Times start showing up in my driveway every morning? I was planning on calling the Times about that. It is just too weird.

[Debi]

8. Some cc holders don't notice the small charges or assume another authorized user did it

a spouse or child in college. I keep all my receipts and scour my bill each month (and have protection on my cards).

[rzemanfl]

21. You have time to do all that and be a Princess too, I am

impressed.

[Debi]

26. Damn....

Now you know my secret x(


:P

[RamboLiberal]

11. I had that happen several years ago on my debit card

Several small charges for music & porn downloading. $19.95 & $29.95 adding up to a total of about $150. I assume if I hadn't caught it quickly they'd have been going after some bigger charges. They faked an email address with my name as well.

One of the companies that does the charges for the downloading & porn sites was a b*stard to get to reverse the charges, even with my bank. The other company was good & reversed the charges immediately. The bank made me do the calls first.

And it took 2 go rounds with the bank to convince them the charges were fraudulent even though I reported them while they were in pre-posted stage to my debit account.

Oh and I had to report it to my local PD - like that little agency would be able to find the culprits.

Not a fun experience. Also had my EBay account hijacked on Xmas day a couple of years ago.

After that I use real-strong passwords & logins, all different, for all these accounts.

[rzemanfl]

14. Well those folks got something for their trouble. As near as I can

tell, whoever had my stuff got nothing at all except "memberships."

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

22. I caught my crook with the help of some friends.

He's eligible for parole again in 2028.

David

[MagickMuffin]

15. Strange.... I received two cards in the mail with an unsealed envelop

I let them know they didn't even seal it before they stuck it in the mail to me. They canceled the cards, but it made me curious if it was intentional. You know like they were hoping someone would steal the numbers and start using it so at least someone would be using this card.

I wonder if you can find out from the auction sites the internet ISP's and track where they came from.

Glad you had your cards canceled.

[pengillian101]

18. You were lucky to notice the charges so fast.

I'm guessing the CC did not call you about the small charges, but you were able to cancel the card before they did some major charges.

We had a new card compromised once and it was only used twice. Once it was used to purchase a catalog item by phone and the other at our friend's place of business.

We got a bill for close to $3,000 of on-line gambling charges. Phone call to the CC canceled the card and we were not responsible for any gambling charges.

I'm thinking that giving out our card numbers over the phone is just as risky as on-line. By phone - who knows how long that customer service phone person has been there. It just may be a dishonest worker who signs to work at a company just to collect credit card numbers for a day or two.

:shrug:

[rzemanfl]

20. Actually I noticed the charges when I was making an on line

payment on the account. I called the number of one of them and found out it was some government auction membership thing. The woman I spoke to sounded very matter of fact about cancelling the charges, like it happened all the time. She was the one who asked me if I had a cs.com email address.

[truth2power]

23. A relative of mine had that happen about 5 years ago...

There were some minor charges on his credit card at a small plumbing company on the east coast. Then the biggie was clear out in California where the person charged about $5000. worth of horse equipment at a farm supply store. The associate at the store remembered the individual loading the stuff into an Escalade. I guess the thief was doing quite well with his scam.

The story was that these people sell the stuff at swap meets & such. Probably make more than $5000. on it.

Luckily, my relative wasn't on the hook for the money. I don't exactly remember the details.

[A-Long-Little-Doggie]

24. I just had to cancel my debit card today.

I saw a $10 charge for Skype. The bank told me today that it was processed over the Internet. They used my debit card number and my PIN, which I have NEVER used when making online purchases. I am guessing that this was a test of my card, too.

So now I have to wait 7-10 days for my new one, grrrr. :grr:

[rzemanfl]

25. I have to wait a similar amount of time for my new card. n/t

[blues90]

27. This happened to me with my debit card

I only knew because B of A called me asking if I took a trip lately and I said no, why. Well we noticed unusual activity at a certain name gas stations . I never lost my card or lent it out. But what they did was make a purchase at a gas station and there is a $1 charge for authurization no matter what the total charge was , it was gas stations that have seperate stores. Then I was told to look at my balance each day and call them if i see more and I ended up with over $1,800.00 total but the bank credited me the full amount back. I have no idea how this happened because you need the card and the pin and or a signature and I told the bank I only go to two gas stations and none of that brand.

I was told to call the local police and when I mentioned the one town I did get gas in near work they told me this was the credit card crime capital of all of southern Calif. So I never use a debit card at a gas station ever again.

[Mnemosyne]

28. Someone hacked into the center that processes my Visa debit card, from the CU, recently.

I have to wait another week for new card.

It happened in 2005 also.

Luckily, I am usually broke. :)

[pipi_k]

40. Same thing happened to me

In fact, I received a phone call from Chase Bank on Jan 20th (inauguration day!) telling me there were unauthorized charges.

Turns out that banks weren't told until it got close to Jan 20th so that the Inauguration would totally overshadow what happened.

And the company that got hacked knew about it in May of last year.

The unauthorized charges on my card happened in January of this year and were all clustered after a certain date. Luckily I hadn't made a whole lot of charges after Christmas so it was easy for me to tell which were mine and which weren't. Plus I know what I charge because I keep track in a little notebook.

Chase was real good about taking the bad charges off my card and closing the account and mailing me a new card.

But it was pretty creepy...

[Mnemosyne]

42. It's definitely unsettling. Sounds like you were fortunate to

be treated fairly by Chase. Horrible that the center waited so long to report. :hi:

[Sydnie]

30. my odd addition to your story

Someone is ordering magazines and having them sent to me. They are putting my name on lists that are sold to cold callers. They have added several "services" to my phone bill to the tune of almost $100! I spent my afternoon calling to get cancellations and charges deleted.

They have my name and my address and phone number correct. They have a hawaii.us.com email address and all this is done on line. I did go to check my bank balance and that has not been compromised at this point anyway.

When I called to cancel the Allure magazine subscription the customer service agent asked me if I had ordered Self magazine or not. I told her no. She said she would cancel that one as well.

How do I know it's the same person doing it? Because even though they have the name and address and phone number correct, they are using the same email address over and over and over to do these little pranks. You would think that they would come up with a different email address every now and then, wouldn't you?

This has been going on for months now. I don't know who to contact at this point to get it investigated and stopped.

[crispini]

32. That sounds personal.

I'd look at people you know. That's not fraud, that's harassment.

[Sydnie]

33. You know, I have thought the same thing myself

but I don't think there is anyone I have pissed off so much to spend the energy doing that. I really have thought about it deeply. I haven't fired anyone in over a year so I know it's not anyone that works for me (and they have my office number not my home number anyway).

I hate to think it's my neighbor that I don't get along with. :shrug:

So, I should report that I am being harassed by some one on the net to my local police?

[napi21]

34. Can't you cancel your current account and get a new one with a new pin?

That's usually what the cc's & banks suggest. That way, who ever has your info won't be able to complete any transactions. Yes you may have to wait a few days for a new card, but it's woth the wait.

[Sydnie]

36. That's just it

They aren't spending any money they are just ordering subscriptions to be sent to me that I get the bill for! I have several magazines delivered here for work that just gets filed unless I need them so when a weird one comes in, I don't think much about it until I get the bill for the subscription. I called today and found out they were all ordered on the internets with a weird email address. They canceled them easily enough, but goodness knows how many more I might have coming in the future.

The charges on the phone bill were for weird email and voice mail services that, according to Verizon, the FCC MAKES them do billing for these companies! I had to call the phone company, then call the companies themselves to report the fraudulent accounts and charges, then call the phone company back with the confirmation numbers of the cancellation so they could segregate those charges on my bill, because I won't be paying them EVER!

I have also had calls from people that buy cold call lists for things like work from home opportunities (ponzi schemes nothing more), several of them. They are all understanding and such but they all report the same email address on the lists as were reported to me by the publishers and the phone company. And, once you get on those lists getting off can be a nightmare as they sell them again and again and again.

So, as far as I can tell, they don't have my bank info ... although, now that I think about it, my online access to my bank info has been locked twice by the bank in the last two months.

hummmm ... they obviously are trying to access that as well.

[napi21]

38. I suggest you cancel your current account and get a new one, with the same bank if you're

happy with them. There's just too much info out there for you to feel comfortable. It's a bit of an inconvenience for you, but I think it't worth it.

[Sydnie]

39. You're probably right

but I can't move.

I wish there was someone to report it to and get it on the record all the same.

[crispini]

31. Sleep shopping?

Don't suppose you take those sleeping pills that make you do things while you sleep? Heh.

[rzemanfl]

41. I don't think I could open a new email account somewhere in my

sleep.

[October]

35. Here's what I was told...

This happened to me twice. On one occasion, the "criminal" had my CHECKING ACCOUNT number (paypal), and that was harder to stop than a debit card because it had to go through the clearing house, which takes a few days. The first order on my checking account was for books being sent to Algiers. (Can I make this up?)

Anyway, I've been told the criminals start with small charges to make sure the card is in working order. On our debit card, we had $3 phone charges, and $5 gas charges...and then, within minutes there were $950 computer peripheral charges and other bigger ticket items.

We were lucky. Circuit City called us because the shipping address didn't match the billing address, so they called to verify our purchase, and that's when we knew our card number was stolen -- not the card, just the number.

The checking account number was scary and we went right to the bank and convinced them our information was stolen. Their records showed nothing pending -- but Paypal's records indicated 3 big charges! Nightmare! Finally, the bank manager contacted the clearinghouse and we swore an affidavit and the funds were not transferred.

Not fun.

[Canuckistanian]

37. I'm guessing a roving band of guilty hacker wannabe philanthropists

Call me crazy.