my AMEX card was STOLEN!
 

yep come home last night after a 16hr day in hell, and rip into my mail listed "URGENT NOTICE" saying to my self "WTF?"

its a letter from amex stating all these charges for huge amounts that i had never bought. so i call the 1-800-amex fraud line and the next thing i know they are machine gunning the HELL out of me with mega mass purchases from FREEKING VIRGINIA! $1000's and $1000's of dollars worth!


as my SPHINCTER goes into SLAM SHUT MODE, i recover enough from this barrage of purchases to say........"but i live in arizona". i havent been to VIRGINIA since i was a kid and im 52!"


so we go thru all these charges and suddenly a charge comes up from late last month(june) to a motorcycle shop for $114 bucks for a FMF USFS approved silencer for my 1982 husqvarna. now i had not used this amex card anywhere else, i am a total anal arsehole about shredding my documents, i do not throw my statements in my dumpster, i dont use it on the internet but maybe 2-3 times a year if at all. i havent been to any bars in a long time, i havent been out of country or out of state, and i SURE AS HELL HAVENT BEEN TO FREEKING VIRGINIA!



so what the hell gives here? where i buy my motorsickle parts is from one of my employees here, when invoicing came to him he called me and i gave amex number over my work phone and he entered into his system. its not like this is some piss ant lil hole in the wall biker shop. its ride now powersports who is a freeking conglomeration of big money and mega multiple stores thruout the u.s.



so what the hell do you think happened?????



yes amex waived all the charges and they are sending me a new card overnight fed -ex.

that sux OddJob, sorry to hear of your trouble. Since you're so careful with using the card I wonder if there was a leak within AmEx? How likely is it that a hacker was able to get you through some random process? Also I'd ask AmEx to check on the security of the merchants involved. This sux much.

Same thing happened to me a couple years ago with a local tire shop. I suspect the punk copied down the number and went on a shopping spree.

Happens only too often; some employee at a reputable place steals the info and sells/uses it

Years ago I get a catalog and a thank you note addressed to me "Dr." B from the Gap for my recent purchases. Huh? I rarely shop there, and I am certainly no doctor. So follow up with a call to master card: yep a big purchase at this Gap store back east!

Next a call to the note writer to thank her for the card. "oh, wait a minute, you don't sound like Dr. B !" Exactly... Some smooth talker, using my card, purchased a substantial wardrobe of clothes under the guise of a grad gift. The shipping address was somewhere in a bad part of Los Angeles.

I tracked my use of the card to a local rental car company that had a recent high turnover of staff. The person most likely to have done the deed had been gone for a few weeks.

Master Card got all the info from me, and other than crediting me for it, did nothing

So it didn't show that new AR I bought in Dana Point yet?

well lets just say i called my employees(they both work for ride now powersports) on the carpet last night and amex pointed the finger at their place of biz. copied mailed letter from amex and gave it to employee with these exact words.........



"when you get in tommorrow at 8am you grap yer store mgr. by the huevos, and show him this letter, then you have yer mgr. call yer corp. office and explain that YOU have a VERY IRATE CUSTOMER!"


we went over the timeline and charges and my employee stated they do not keep card numbers on file for anyone.


so it remains to be seen where this goes. will i get a call from them? who knows?



me? i think the invoice may have been grabbed by another employee and sold,bartered,traded to someone else who then gave out my number and the rest is history.


this is now interstate fraud and guess who comes to the party now? yep those great guys in blue suits with sunglasses and it aint the blues bros.........yep the FBI!


it remains to be seen how this gets resolved?



i always keep my receipts and shred them.


i always keep my statements and box them up at home and save for like a coupla years and then shred them.


when and if i use a credit card its always amex for any computer purchases and even then i would rather call a 1800 # and speak to someone if at all possible re: a purchase.


i only have (3) credit cards: visa/amex/chevron- texaco so i can go around the world if need be when i am bored or after robbing ft knox and need to get the hell outta dodge.


i watch my statements like a hawk.........no sign of anything on june statement.


i dont pay my bills over the internet or bank over the internet for this exact reason. i am "old school" and lick a stamp for every envelope and take to post office INSIDE not some mailbox in the middle of BFE for some meth head to break into and steal my info.



where have i gone wrong?

Visa had been hacked a few years ago and I recieved a call telling me to destroy my current card and they would send me a new number. Thousands of cards were compromised.

Work with the fraud division and they may be able to locate the source.

I use a debit card. Its attached to a savings account I opened just for the card. I keep very little money in there.

I haven't used my credit card in years. I have just one and its locked in my safe. I've had it almost 40 years. Never had another. Never switched either.

Sucks when this happens.

Nowadays they take a picture of the front and back of the card with their cell phones. Takes a second and they have all of the info.

They run it hard til it gets shut off. I had this happen with my AmEx. They took care of everything. It was 15k in charges. 3500 at a walgreens!

this is SER-I-ASS POO!

Some Canadian guy probably lifted your number and spent a bundle on his Virginian holiday! ;)
That sucks but at least the credit card company is looking after you.
A few years ago my sister in law threw out some of the Mastercard or Visa cheques that they sent out with the statement not knowing that they could be easily utilized by someone less than honest.
The credit card company had found out who it was and didn't prosecute due to the cost vs loss factor.
My wife had her credit card lifted by someone in Quebec who used it to buy air conditioning equipment from several wholesalers.
It happens....

hell i wish, we could of had some fun!



the wild thing is this just happened(the fraudulent charges) this last sunday 7/18/10.


the last time i used amex card was on 6/24/10 w/ride now powersports for the FMF pipe purchase. so in a matter of 3 weeks it was "off to the stores" with my card number.

wow!! hell is gonna get crowded!

a pelican here got ripped. but the CC company covered it. then his wife went to the same restaurant, and her card got ripped. by shear luck, they nailed the exact business that was scanning the cards. i dont know what happened..but i hoped it involved a SWAT team, and full body cavity searches.

this is now interstate fraud and guess who comes to the party now? yep those great guys in blue suits with sunglasses and it aint the blues bros.........yep the FBI!

Doubt it.

After 40 years, it's probably expired anyway.

I will mail it back to you as soon as I am finished with the 930 project I am undertaking.

yeah i doubt this ranks up there with bonnie and clyde or the lindburgh case , but once it goes interstate , it becomes a FEDERAL deal.


now how amex or visa or any other card handles this, is beyond me. its actually beyond my feeble law abiding mind to pull this crap. but i guess it happens probably more than any of us know.


this is yer classic for me at least "well it has never happened to me and i do take extreme precautions" kind of thing and then WHAM suddenly yer called on the carpet for the piss poor actions of others.


the latest scam here in scottsdale is bad guys setting up SCANNERS on ATM machines(which i didnt do a withdrawl with) and gas station pumps.


practically invizable to the card user. you swipe yer card for gas or at an atm and it scans yer card, and then they retreive scanner and all yer info and the next thing ya know yer card is being used in FREEKING SOMALIA!

There's all kinds of tricks they use; from taking down/photographing numbers to scanners/skimmers. Some have gone so far as to set up complete fake ATMs to capture card info & PINs.

Actually its not. And the interest rate is very low. The carrier has changed hands of course. But I have only ever had one credit card, got it in Vermont when I was 18, its still activated.

My first reaction was "Who the fark spends 3500 at walgreens" then it dawned on my socially sheltered self...

My Amex got declined at a Chevron in Claremont, CA last week. I was pissed. It was plenty hot out and I was in full riding gear and not in the mood to peel off my helmet, disconnect my radar detector earpiece and go to see the clerk. But I did. When I stopped next, I had vm's on both my phones from Amex asking if I had been at that gas station. I said yes and I really need that card to work for the remainder of my business trip in CA. They said it was all fixed then.

I have a co-worker whose husband is a Secret Service agent, now on POTUS detail, but who previously worked CC fraud. They do get involved when they suspect a big racket going on. He took down one that was swiping customers' cards at a Borders store. They had two card readers, one for the store and one for their racket. Man, the penalties for that stuff can really snowball, depending on how many they write you for.