I got hit by credit card fraud

[hcoles]

We think initial event was a pizza bought in New York - we got a notice from MasterCard and got the card cancelled and received new cards the next day.

Then..... $8k of fraudulent charges showed up on our bill including a trip using one of the private jet services. We have, what we think is, the name of the guy.... I don't think anything will happen to him. Also a Macy's item was apparently sent to our house - I guess he was watching and picked it up. That's a bit disturbing.

I called MasterCard and got the system set to send me an email on any charge over $1.

As I understand online purchases that end up being claimed as fraudulent are the responsibility of the company accepting the online order. So far MasterCard says they will resolve the charges and we won't have to pay. One kicker - while the charges are being resolved you might be responsible if you only make the minimum (or not full) payment because you end up owing the interest on the outstanding balance.

Be careful out there.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Yes, and your credit line is tied up for weeks while they "investigate" it. Happened to me right as I was moving. Sucked and added a lot of extra stress I didn't need. As it turns out I didn't need the extra credit line available but at the time you never know whether you might for something unforeseen, plus the replacement card showed up only a couple of days before I left. That wasn't fun waiting around for it and made me second guess my decision to have it sent there rather than to the new address.

There are so many exploits and vulnerabilities these days it's not a problem that's going away anytime soon. The fact that all these corporations are freely sharing anything and everything they can dredge up about you (including CC #s I'm sure) doesn't help. My new cards allow me to keep them locked to all purchases which is a good solution - I just unlock it using a smartphone app right before I use it, then lock it again immediately afterwards. Doesn't work in all situations, but most.

Thieves suck.

[JD159]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Yes, and your credit line is tied up for weeks while they "investigate" it. Happened to me right as I was moving. Sucked and added a lot of extra stress I didn't need. As it turns out I didn't need the extra credit line available but at the time you never know whether you might for something unforeseen, plus the replacement card showed up only a couple of days before I left. That wasn't fun waiting around for it and made me second guess my decision to have it sent to the new address.

There are so many exploits and vulnerabilities these days it's not a problem that's going away anytime soon. The fact that all these corporations are freely sharing anything and everything they can dredge up about you (including CC #s I'm sure) doesn't help. My new cards allow me to keep them locked to all purchases which is a good solution - I just unlock it using a smartphone app right before I use it, then lock it again immediately afterwards. Doesn't work in all situations, but most.

Thieves suck.

Pretty cool, but what if your phone is dead???

[GH85Carrera]

I have a USAA Visa. They will send my a text message for unusual charges outside my normal spending. It has been compromised a couple of times in the past. Both times the charges were reversed immediately and it cost me nothing.

I often wonder what the person looking at my purchase profile thinks of me. I am the treasured for our local PCA region. When we have a Christmas party or a new member event and the club is organizing the event, I pay the bill, and I have received payment from all the people attending. I just write a club check to pay that charge.

One charge was for over $800 in pizza. It went right through. One charge was the fancy high dollar restaurant at the top of the Devon tower. It was $2,500 or so. It went right through. They have picked up and stopped charges for Merl Norman stores since I don't buy much makeup.

I drove out of state and bought a full tank of premium for my 911. They texted me and asked if that was me. I replied it was and the charge went through.

[HardDrive]

Happened to us recently as well. Someone used it to book a car service in NYC for $1000. They caught it right away. Just pain in the ass to update all the automatic payments that use that card.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by JD159

Pretty cool, but what if your phone is dead???

One of the limitations - ditto if you’re in a place with no reception (they exist). I carry a prepaid card for such situations or incidental stuff, just don’t keep too much on it in case of fraud.

[fintstone]

I used to use one credit card a lot...and every time I used it outside my zip code, they froze it. I travel a lot and was embarrassed a couple times so i quit using it in favor of others that did not do this. I have had a couple fraudulent uses of one, but the company caught it each time, stopped charges and sent me a new card.

I never use a credit card in a restaurant as they are the worst possible...since a low paid employee usually walks away with it for an extended period.

[carreradpt]

Something similar happened to us a couple months ago. Received a very small package from Macy's NY. I hadn't ordered anything from them. Opened it and saw that it was one part of a split shipment, paid for with my credit card. My package was the $18 part. The other shipment was $700, shoes enroute to another address. Called Macys and notified them I didn't authorize and then called my credit card co. Funny, Macys said that they could not turn off the 2nd shipment even though it was a week out.

CC co said that the card was probably compromised some time ago, but definitely not recently Got my new card the very next day.

[RKDinOKC]

The Visa Debit card from my bank has the same lost or stolen coverage as a Credit Card.
I do not have any credit cards.

Set up 3 accounts, Savings, Bills, and Expenses. Bills and expenses each have a debit card.

The Bills account I use only for my recurring trusted automatic payments like gas and electricity, etc. Transfer a budget at the beginning of each month to cover those bills. Keep a small amount extra in the account to cover fluctuations in usage like gas or electric as it goes up and down with the seasons.

The Expenses account I use for all other purchases. Transfer money to that account based on that week's budget. If any money is spent that is not a part of my normal budget I transfer the money to this account just before making the purchase. Can transfer to it with my phone. Use it like a pre-paid card

The advantage is if my expenses card is lost or stolen I do not have to change the credit card info on my recurring trusted payments accounts. And since it is a debit card instead of a credit card, if stolen they can only get the amount actually in the account (a week's budget at most) and not a credit card's limit.

[Por_sha911]

Unfortunately this problem above is the reason why I have made this suggestion in the past:
Have multiple cards
-one just for regular payments like utilities, mortgage, insurance DON'T use it for anything else
-one for online purchases and nothing else
-one for everyday purchases: gas, food, restaurants
and
-one for traveling (and this is the backup if any of the 3 above get hacked).

Obviously you have to have the credit score to get separate lines of credit but it sure makes life easier. When I had my everyday purchase card hacked (I think it was a skimmer at a gas station) it didn't affect all the others and I used the travel card until a new one arrived.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by RKDinOKC

The Visa Debit card from my bank has the same lost or stolen coverage as a Credit Card.
I do not have any credit cards.

I would review your banks coverage just to make sure you are getting exactly what you believe you are getting.

While the Fed does require banks to offer protection for debit cards there are differences in your monetary exposure that’s tied to reporting time.

Personal liability with a credit card is capped at $50.00

Personal liability with a debit card is also capped at $50.00, IF reported within 2 days. After that and up to day 60 your exposure is $500.00. After 60 days there is zero mandated protection.

Yes, some banks may be more generous than what the Fed mandates, just suggesting, make sure.

Oh, and, if someone swipes your debit card it can be run as a credit card option.

I’m sure you’ve seen this, the terminal offers you the option to run as debit or credit.

When run as debit it’s a direct deduction.

When run as credit it processes differently, meaning their could be a up to a two day drag on you even being aware and they could charge more than is available in the account.

[RKDinOKC]

Checked with my bank (a credit union) before going debit. Credit and Debit are the same except no credit.

Credit limit is same as bank balance when charging as a credit card. Tested it as a credit purchase (no pin) with not enough available balance and charge was immediately not approved. Pulled up my bank app and transferred enough to cover charge and in 5 minutes the same charge was approved.

[mepstein]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Unfortunately this problem above is the reason why I have made this suggestion in the past:
Have multiple cards
-one just for regular payments like utilities, mortgage, insurance DON'T use it for anything else
-one for online purchases and nothing else
-one for everyday purchases: gas, food, restaurants
and
-one for traveling (and this is the backup if any of the 3 above get hacked).

Obviously you have to have the credit score to get separate lines of credit but it sure makes life easier. When I had my everyday purchase card hacked (I think it was a skimmer at a gas station) it didn't affect all the others and I used the travel card until a new one arrived.

Yes, I agree 100%. You need a couple different sources whether credit or debit so if you have a problem - buying tickets at Disney, taking your friends out to dinner, ect. you just pull out another card and deal with the issue later. We were hacked for $7,400 from our bank acct durring a vacation, called our bank, they dealt with it and gave us back our money in a couple days. In the mean time, just used a different card. Also certain cards have certain coverage. Our ski's were stolen at mountain, submitted a police report, cc company reimbursed us all but $50. Our debit cards won't do this but some other peoples may. You might as well get used to bank fraud, it will happen more and more. Just be prepared, read your cc companies fine print and you won't get damaged.

[Alan A]

Just use Amex.
They reverse it pretty much immediately. No muss no fuss.

[wildthing]

I set it up so I get a text for any charge over $20 or any online purchase. Before this, I check my account online at least once a week as I balance the books. I caught some purchases and called immediately. They reversed them with just a few questions asked and sent me a new card. And they were the ones who suggested setting up text alerts.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by RKDinOKC

Checked with my bank (a credit union) before going debit. Credit and Debit are the same except no credit.

No, that’s the point.

The decision to process as debit or credit is made by the card user at time of purchase.

Due to the difference in processing debit v credit there will be a delay in the time to settle the transaction if it’s run as credit.

Your bank can’t decline it until they see it which will take at least a day. The bank is not in the loop at the actual time of transaction when run as credit.

If you have overdraft on the account it will, depending on how far over it is, approve the transaction. More so if you have good standing with your bank and they want to keep their customer happy.

[Evans, Marv]

We got hit twice a year or two ago. There is a reservation fairly close by with a restaurant we like. The first time an unauthorized charge was made on the card, we caught it quickly and notified the credit union. They deemed it fraudulent. About a month & a half later the same thing happened. At that point, I printed out our charges and noticed both bad charges were exactly three days after we had visited that restaurant. I took the printout to the head of their security, pointed it out to him and left the printout with him. The next time we ate there, I announced I wanted to be present when they did the transaction because we had had unauthorized charges against our card twice after visiting there. The manager ran the charge. We haven't had a problem since.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Unfortunately this problem above is the reason why I have made this suggestion in the past:
Have multiple cards
-one just for regular payments like utilities, mortgage, insurance DON'T use it for anything else
-one for online purchases and nothing else
-one for everyday purchases: gas, food, restaurants
and
-one for traveling (and this is the backup if any of the 3 above get hacked).

Obviously you have to have the credit score to get separate lines of credit but it sure makes life easier. When I had my everyday purchase card hacked (I think it was a skimmer at a gas station) it didn't affect all the others and I used the travel card until a new one arrived.

I started doing this several years ago. I think my cards got hacked 3 times over the years. Only a slight inconvenience. The one that I thought was funny, a motel room in Utah and a train ticket in Paris, the same day. I have been to Utah but never Paris.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

No, that’s the point.

The decision to process as debit or credit is made by the card user at time of purchase.

Due to the difference in processing debit v credit there will be a delay in the time to settle the transaction if it’s run as credit.

Your bank can’t decline it until they see it which will take at least a day. The bank is not in the loop at the actual time of transaction when run as credit.

If you have overdraft on the account it will, depending on how far over it is, approve the transaction. More so if you have good standing with your bank and they want to keep their customer happy.

.....all true. I'm no longer traveling, etc. much...a single Visa debit with overdraft protection serves me quite well. I know all the pros & cons....a debit is the ONLY one that can meet my daily needs. Between the CC/debit service provider, and my small credit union....fraud protection is simply awesome and "for me", it's sufficient. Both have their niche....I don't need but one...YMMV.

[RKDinOKC]

Always process my debit cards as credit. Like IN MY DESCRIPTION. The credit limit when using the process as credit option is whatever my account balance is. And yes, I tested it purchasing as a credit card and it was denied when I had insufficient funds for the purchase. Credit Cards will not let you spend more than your limit, the purchase is declined.