GatewayRedbirds.com

Somehow, someone out in the San Francisco area has gotten a hold of my debit card and been using it at Old Navy, Build-a-Bear, and other random [expletive]. It's weird, because I was out there for 5 days over new New Years, BUT, I never once used this card, for anything. I used a credit card and a different debit card the entire time. I still have the card in my wallet. As far as I can remember it was never out of my possession.

Kudos to Chase for calling me up about it. Big F U to Chase for the fact that the guy on the phone was barely comprehensible, and that instead of just giving me the money back I have to wait until the transactions actually go through and then dispute them. That'll be fun!

That's awful, GK! How much was the damage? Mr. Planet's paranoid about it since it happened to him a few years ago (the dumbass paid off an Ameren bill with his address on it), so now he tries to pay cash at every restaurant/bar he frequents. Sounds like you found out about it quickly, which is good. Do you not use the card much?

Wow, identity theft sucks. Hope you get back all you lost, Geen.

How did they detect the purchases as fraud?

planet pujolsian wrote:That's awful, GK! How much was the damage? Mr. Planet's paranoid about it since it happened to him a few years ago (the dumbass paid off an Ameren bill with his address on it), so now he tries to pay cash at every restaurant/bar he frequents. Sounds like you found out about it quickly, which is good. Do you not use the card much?

Looks like $368, so far. Chase seemed to catch it pretty quickly. Some computer somewhere probably noticed that I've never bought anything at Old Navy. It's not an account I use often and has a really small balance in it. In fact, it only had about $70 in it when the fraud began. Nice to know Chase let them overdraw it by $300 just for good measure.

Arthur Dent wrote:How did they detect the purchases as fraud?

I don't know. Probably because it was at stores I never shop at and they're out of state.

I have a Chase credit card that I use for most everything. I've used it all over the world, but for all things to alert them to possible fraud it was when I was out in Denver visiting my Dad in November that they thought there might be fraud. The $20 Super Shuttle ticket from the airport was what triggered their system. Weird.

Man that sucks. Sorry dude.

This is why I have an ATM card over a debit. Credit cards are so much better.

I bet the repeated overdrafts were the clue.

The only time I've had a fraud alert on my credit card was when they flagged it for use in Brazil despite the fact that I'd notified them in advance that I'd be there. This can be a severe irritation in Brazil where accessing your money is non-trivial. Anyway, if you ever want your credit card company to get [expletive] done, call them international collect. No waiting on hold. No press 1 for this or that. A guy answered and had me fixed up in less than a minute.

Arthur Dent wrote:I bet the repeated overdrafts were the clue.

The only time I've had a fraud alert on my credit card was when they flagged it for use in Brazil despite the fact that I'd notified them in advance that I'd be there. This can be a severe irritation in Brazil where accessing your money is non-trivial. Anyway, if you ever want your credit card company to get [expletive] done, call them international collect. No waiting on hold. No press 1 for this or that. A guy answered and had me fixed up in less than a minute.

Oh man, how confusing are some of the ATMs there? There were multiple times when I simply could not figure out how to get money out of them. They've got like a billion transaction options like paying your electric bill and rolling over your 401k. I would just give up and try a different one until one worked.

Funnily enough, I've never once notified my credit card company that I'm going to be using it overseas and it has never been declined or flagged for suspicious activity. And then its the Denver airport that sets off alarm bells.

Michael wrote:Man that sucks. Sorry dude.

This is why I have an ATM card over a debt. Credit cards are so much better.

It's why I hardly ever use the thing. I use my credit card for everything and pay it off in full at the end of the month.

It pisses me off so bad when people come into my job, demand I give them two 32 GB iPod touches and a digital camera, rings up a 800+ dollar total then attempts to pay with an out of state license and swipe 3 or 4 different credit cards, can't give me the right phone number, all of his cards get declined and when I tell my superior, they just roll their eyes and say "At least they didn't go through." Yeah, but what if they did you moron? It's happened twice this week alone.