GatewayRedbirds.com

I open my statement yesterday to find two charges that I never made to an online overstocks store each for $70. The credit card company looks into it and there's a third to the same place from last week. My husband had to close the account, get new cards issued, put a fraud alert on our credit report and we have to hope that this is as far as it went. My husband thinks that someone got our acct number from a less than secure online vendor -this card is our "online" purchase card. I hate this someone who's too lazy to earn their own keep and has to take from others. Bastard.

That's happened to me twice in the past few years. It's frustrating and stupid.

Oh, and it may not be an unsecure online vendor that coughed up your credit card info. Every time you use a credit card at a restaurant, there's a chance that someone in the back of that restaurant just wrote down all the info from your card that you'd need to buy something online. There are even illegal machines that let you scan a card and record all the info from it.

That's never happened to me, but it seems like if somebody had "stolen your identity", they'd be running up higher bills.

These crooks are creative. When I lived in Minneapolis, my bank called to question a $3500 bike purchase made on my ATM card in some obscure eastern European country. The card number was provided to the bike shop owner over the phone, he became suspicious (the person probably couldn't provide the code number from the back of the card) and contacted the bank. Needless to say, I had nothing to do with the purchase. The bank rep told me that some people have devised a computer system that randomly spits out card numbers....somtimes it will spit out a real card number and purchases are made, other times the card number doesn't work, so they keep on trying. Crazy. If they put this thought/ambition/energy into a real job, they'd probably be millionaires!

pop_haines wrote:

Socnorb11 wrote:That's never happened to me, but it seems like if somebody had "stolen your identity", they'd be running up higher bills.

Not always.

There are those that run up the card hard and fast,
but there are others who operate as parasites in the
background...figuring you won't notice the smaller bites
for a long while.

Yup. Also the less likely to be caught, plus, if they're smart enough, and know all of the laws, the thresholds are so that the crimes are lesser in punishment.

heyzeus wrote:That's happened to me twice in the past few years. It's frustrating and stupid.

Oh, and it may not be an unsecure online vendor that coughed up your credit card info. Every time you use a credit card at a restaurant, there's a chance that someone in the back of that restaurant just wrote down all the info from your card that you'd need to buy something online. There are even illegal machines that let you scan a card and record all the info from it.

That's true, that does happen. However, I know with this card it wasn't used in restaurants.

Simbagal23 wrote:These crooks are creative. If they put this thought/ambition/energy into a real job, they'd probably be millionaires!

This is precisely my gripe. Some people put more effort into doing things illegally than into being a contributor to society.

It's a hassle that, in the end, costs us all.

Bastard.

Yes.

It is happening to our VP here. Second time it has happened. They charged one dollar someplace, made sure it ran through, then started charging big stuff.

And just yesterday my wife gave all of our information to what she thought was a credit card company...we are pretty sure it was a scam.

You should tell your wife not to give out that info unless she is the one who initiated the call, then she KNOWS who she's giving it to.

When someone tried it with my card, they tried to purchase a 2.00 item to make sure it worked. My bank called me right away and asked if I made those purchases.