Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). You may recall 3 months ago there was a fraudulent charge on our old card we never use.
We just cleared that up like last week. It took about 5 calls to get the last $2 off the stupid card. How annoying, huh?
That one was an odd one because it is a card we had not used in years.
In fact, they were so obnoxious about the whole thing (gave us lots of runaround, particularly over the last $2) that I was ready to cancel the card. I told dh to just cancel the thing. I Was pretty peeved.
Well, today I am glad I didn't. It's the "backup" card that I don't think I have ever had to use. But I got gas yesterday, scanned my 25 cent coupon (25 cent per gallon) and threw it in the large (tall) trash.
Of course, my card was denied. I tried again, I figured I put in zip wrong. But it was denied. In the process I lost my 25 cent coupon. I am usually more superstitious about hanging onto it until I pump my gas, so I was pretty peeved at that point.
I dug out the old State Farm card I had threatened to cancel last month and hoped it would go through. I had absolutely no gas in the tank though I had enough cash to buy 3 gallons at least.
IT went through.
I knew dh was getting ice cream with the kids so I wondered if he had just charged at the same moment or something. I called him and he hadn't paid yet so I warned him card may be declined. HE told me he had just filled the van at the same gas station, earlier in the day anyway, so maybe it just looked suspicious that we both filled up within hours.
Well, his ice cream purchase went through fine. I figured I had entered the zip code wrong. I'd been able to just try again in the past, but who knows. IT seems we had both filled up on the same day before.
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Well, this morning Chase called. They had a $1.95 charge and a $17 charge that we did not recognize. Seemed minute overall, but for whatever reason it tripped their fraud alert. (Don't ask me why they allowed the "rare" ice cream purchase to go through but not gas at the gas station we use every week).
So they closed the cards and we will get new ones in a few days. Our tanks are full, pantry is full, and all that, so I expect we will just not buy anything until they arrive.
I am glad everything I ordered online was already shipped and charged. Phew!
Dh said we will have to notify everyone who charges our card automatically. I don't like that whole automatic charge thing and only our gym does. Funny enough, DISH does too, though we told them we did not want them to do it that way. So um, yeah, I don't think we will be giving Dish our NEW credit card #. Muahahaha to those idiots. We'll pay them what we owe them (by check) but I think we will drop them this month and hell if I am giving them my credit card # again. Just chalk it up to one more reason why I am not a Dish fan. The timing is rather sweet in that regard.
For us, this is the first time our main every day credit card has ever been breached. For that, you could call us lucky. But for me it's the 3rd time in the last year I have suffered some form of credit card fraud. I don't think I could be more careful with my info so it is REALLY frustrating. All the carefulness in the world does nothing when the keepers of your info are so NOT careful. BAH to them.
I do know the point when I jinxed myself. I was trying to talk Ms. PReschool into online bill pay and she was wary of online stuff like that. I told her I had only had my one major identity fraud BUT that had nothing to do with anything online. Nowhere online do I have stored my name, address, maiden name, birth date, and SS#. My suspicion all along has either been financial institution or government agency (IRS?) security breach. But yeah, if you breached my bank account online you couldn't find my birth date or SS#.
Anyway, so I told her I had NEVER had issues with online bill pay or online credit card purchases, and I think within the week I had that last credit card breach.
Color me jinxed...
I find it suspicious I did just do a lot of online purchases. Then again, it just may have nothing to do with it. Who knows...
Will never know because the credit card companies could care less about tracking down these criminals. Just a cost of doing business. Like this piddly $20 in charges means a hoot to them? Not. THey seem pretty unconcerned when strangers opened cards and ran up $5k bills ($5k per creditor) in my name. Just as piddly in their eyes.
ID Theft AGAIN
October 15th, 2008 at 04:49 pm
October 15th, 2008 at 05:00 pm 1224090050
October 15th, 2008 at 05:27 pm 1224091641
How can anyone NOT check their credit card balance(s)?
They get a bill every month.
October 15th, 2008 at 06:06 pm 1224094002
But I can't take any credit here Analise. In every instance the fraud department called me, rather immediately.
When my ID was stolen to open new cards they used my real # on some of the cards (not on others). So they contacted me and I knew something was off.
In this case I kind of sluffed off the denied card as a fluke but they called me today. That being said, I do check my balances almost every day on the card I use primarily and I Would have caught it tomorrow probably, when the charge posted.
Dh told me last night to check the card in case and I said, "For what? I checked it this morning." It takes a couple of days for things to come through on my Quicken. I figured Chase was denying my card for a reason they would call. I guess they were rather slow about it, which is a little unnerving.
October 15th, 2008 at 06:12 pm 1224094322
October 15th, 2008 at 06:59 pm 1224097179
Actually, can't you just ask your credit card companies to cancel and issue new cards with numbers?
And who has had access to your back-up cards?
October 15th, 2008 at 07:03 pm 1224097413
October 15th, 2008 at 07:44 pm 1224099899
October 15th, 2008 at 08:13 pm 1224101618
The second one used an old card we hadn't used in years. I have no idea how it was compromised except for old records at a retailer or something. Since we hadn't used the cards in years.
The third one, lord knows. We use this card all the time. A waiter could have swiped it or some online source could have been breached. Anything really.
BA - yes we have new cards with new numbers. No one we know of has had access to our actual cards - they are in our wallets. (Not lost or stolen anyway).
I am afraid we are having a bout of bad luck - but as far as existing credit cards being used for fraudulent transactions - those have really been on the rise lately. That is why I am surprised this is the first year that scenario has ever happened to us. I hardly know anyone who hasn't been in that situation at least once. Then again it seems a lot of this kind of stuff this year - friends and family - it's been going on a lot more than usual it seems.