reminder to check your CC statements regularly. My card is a Costco Citibank Visa. I had about $1,500 in false charges done in about two hours before it was caught and the acount was frozen. According to Citibank's fraud department, each charge was made online and manually. There were multiple charges to Uber and a $649 charge to Ralph Lauren.

.

I'm at the point now of requesting a new credit card number every eight months unless it is a card that I have not used at all since it was last issued.

While I have several cards, I only have two that I use on a regular basis.

I just wish they would go after the bastards.

Put 98% of all my charges on one rewards card.

Check it every morning while drinking coffee.

----------------------------------------

I check mine at least weekly. There was a stretch of a couple of years when I don't think I made it 6 months between having to cancel/order new cards.

quote:

Originally posted by dsiets:
I just wish they would go after the bastards.

I would personally like to see the shit bags shot in the face but I suppose that is wishful thinking. This has to be one of the most common forms of theft and yet I know of ZERO instances that the police even tried to get someone for the crime.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
Put 98% of all my charges on one rewards card.

Check it every morning while drinking coffee.

----------------------------------------

Unfortunately, I'm sure there are mornings when you see your statement and then you don't need your coffee anymore.

Mrs. BB61 checks our accounts multiple times a week. She caught one a few weeks ago, Citibank Costco card again, for $659 in luggage purchased in Canada.

I closed a few cards, then reduced my credit limit with the others. I don't care a whole lot about my credit score, it took a little hit.

I and the Mrs also have a 'credit freeze' on both of us. Of course checking statements often is key.

With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

This.

Plus, I monitor my finances daily. I look at my account balances, glance over recent transactions, see how everything is fitting in my budget, and check out how my investments are doing.

If you plan on piloting the ship, you should pay attention to the direction it's heading.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

This.

American Express is great with the notifications. Literally 5 seconds after a purchase is made I get a text alert.

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

This.

American Express is great with the notifications. Literally 5 seconds after a purchase is made I get a text alert.

American Express is also great with alienating and losing merchants who'll accept their cards. It takes a lot to piss off Costco. I hear walmart is considering dropping them as well (if they haven't already).

In the course of an ID theft investigtion (ongoing at present) I learned about bitcoins and the Dark Web.

Apparently (or allegedly...) one suspect drove the other suspect to a Denver area grow store where she could put cash into a kiosk and get a bitcoinn reciept.

Then she went onto the Dark Web and was then able to purchase credit card info with the bitcoins.
There are 24+ victims and with the first one who has confirmed unauthorized credit card use the two young ladies are in jail with $10,000 cash-only bonds.

Check your bank info dailey.

I had no idea that it could be so easy for low-level dirt bags to get info like that.

A lot of this theft of credit card numbers is wrangled from off shore. Jamaica is a hot spot for this activity. The actual crime is committed in places like Jamaica. Once the purchases are made, they start the shell game.
Those "Work From Home And Make $5,000 Per Month" signs you see? Part of the scam. These people are unsuspecting rubes. Literally. They sign up with these companies, well alleged companies. They get very official looking documents in email that detail the agreements of their service. Many of the scammers use the headers of legitimate businesses. These businesses have no idea of their name being used until LE contacts them. So anyways, the rubes sign up for untold riches of working from home. They are in the "repackaging" business. The scam they are fed is that they are a personal shopper for another individual. They receive packages, with instructions to rebox and send to the end user. But, they aren't sending it to the end user. They are shipping it to another rube who thinks they are a personal shopper. And that rube sends it to another repackager. Eventually, it makes it to associates of the scammers who sell it on craigslist or eBay as a legitimate business.

The best part (worst) is the rubes are told that they will be paid monthly, and will get $5,000 plus a bonus if they can handle "high traffic" packages as a personal shopper. At the end of that month, they get nothing. So, they wind up calling LE to complain that they got scammed. Some locations ship $10-20k of property in that month. The repackager is out a few hundred in shipping to boot.

If LE does get looped in on a repackager, at least in Kentucky, there are little that we can do about it, other than to seize the packages. The rube actually thinks they are in a good paying job, and there is no intent to commit a crime.

The worst part is there is no real LE agency with teeth to track, put cases together, and arrest the perpetrators.

One good thing. Most credit card companies have implemented a failsafe. These businesses that are allowing this to go on have the charge disputed, and they have to pay the banks or credit card companies back the full amount.

IE- Papa Johns sells $1,200 worth of gift cards to a fraudulent user. The credit card company disputes the fraud, or sues the vendor, along with the threat that their cards will no longer be able to be used with the business as part of their credit card vendor agreement.

While this sucks for the businesses, it forces them to better monitor their online sales and attempt to weed out fraud.

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

This.

American Express is great with the notifications. Literally 5 seconds after a purchase is made I get a text alert.

Yeap, just had fraud on my AE card last night. AE sent me a text and an email. By the time I called them, withing 5 minutes, the bastards cranking it on shopbop.com. Over two grand

My one of my cards was compromised last week. Spent a little over 1000.00 before the fraud dep. caught it and lock it. I am super careful with my cards so I think the only way it could have been compromised is when I use it at a restaurant and they take it out of my sight. Who knows what happens to it then?..... Makes me want to pay with cash when we go out to eat.

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

This.

American Express is great with the notifications. Literally 5 seconds after a purchase is made I get a text alert.

Yep. I wish all other cards did so. I thought it was just a setting I accidentally enabled.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
With most cards now you can set alerts. You can have them email or text anytime a charge is made with the card.

<This >
I don't understand all the work of closing accounts, having new cards issued quarterly .....
No card company us making anyone pay disputed amounts.
I reckon OCD ....

 
I get instant text alerts for all three cards, for any charge over $0.99. I also have a credit freeze in place at all three agencies. This still does not prevent fraudulent charges popping up occasionally. Somehow, they get the card number (hacking a merchant who foolishly keeps the number, randomly generating it, whatever), and the CCV is fairly easy to hack, with only 999 possible values. Even with the alerts and freeze, I still find myself with a new card number every year or so, sometimes only months. I really don't mind, as I am never liable for the fraud, and I have a routine down pat for what needs to be updated, depending on which card it is. It's a bit of a pain, but only a bit.
 
One thing I do not do is allow any merchant to sign me up for "auto-pay", where they get the card number and "take" a certain amount every billing period. I will forgo the auto-pay discount, and pay the bill from my checking account using my bank's online bill-pay system, so I give the money to the merchants, they don't take it from me. As much as possible, I want to keep my CC number from being stored on anyone else's system. Merchants who do this, without my permission, really piss me off (Midway for example). Two days after any Midway order, I go into my account and delete the saved CC. Brownells has an opt-out, that is opted-in by default, with a tiny little hard to see check box. But you can uncheck it while you are placing your order.
 

The cards we use have a very good fraud detection and alert system going. Sadly we know this because we have had to kill and get new cards issued twice in the past 3-4 years.