Credit Card Fraud

[Warik]

I'm somewhat amused by the fact that my credit card was used on Thursday in a city in which neither I nor my credit card have been for several months.

What a waste of a Saturday afternoon. Now I have to be on hold with the CC company......... wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee how lame.

-Warik

 

[HappyScrappy]

that is why I only ever pay for anything in nickels.
fraud proof and totally untraceable (I wear three layers of gloves when handling them too in order to avoid both germs and prints)

 

[Warik]

img_pltnmcrd.jpg

This has wasted a whole 15 minutes of my Saturday afternoon. I'm going to have someone's ass for this.

The part that sucks is that when I think waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, the only merchant I've used this card with that I don't normally use it with is some company in Indiana where I ordered my Palm keyboard (which uses yahoo secure shopping carts). The charges were made in FL... and obviously in a store. So either someone made an exact copy of my card, magnetic stripe, verfication #, and all (in the mere 2-3 seconds time that I wasn't in physical possesion of my card), or some dumbass in the store wasn't suspicious when the customer read his account number off of his hand and said: "oops I left my card at home HEH HEH HEH"

Anyway... CC company is taking card of everything... and I have just held a memorial service for my American Express card. He died at the young age of 8 months, but his contributions to society will not be forgotten.

-Warik

 

[AAP]

Maybe it was a jealous ex boyfriend taking a last ride on you.

 

[Rockafella Skank]

Other possibilities:

A store that does phone orders. No verification needed. On your honor. Or the thief used it a store where s/he works or knew someone who would help in the fraud.

 

[circusgirl]

Hmm there are many stores which apparently copy your card details when it is swiped through the machine. No way of telling that this is what they are doing... I'm assuming Amex use swipe machines, and not the "ironing boards" that we use for Amex over here, or used to, before they joined the electronic network along with visa and mastercard....

Also, I'm sure you know this, but NEVER let them take the card out of sight. Another common one is going through trash at a munipical dump for discarded card slips, or your trash, to get the number, and making internet/phone purchases.

Luckily without an actual signature you will get your money back.


Anyway, sorry to hear that. That sucks.

 

[FarBeyondDriven]

It is getting common some stores around here want to get an "imprint" of your card when you purchase something. They put it in this thing and it puts the card numbers on the reciept and it goes in the register. I told them to kiss my ass. No telling where that piece of paper will wind up.

 

[Fast Twitch Fiber]

I once worked in the credit card business. People would call in panicking because they saw an unrecognized charge from a city they had never been to. 99% of the time it turned out to be something they ordered by mail and they forgot about it. Half a percent of the time a relative or friend "borrowed" their card without telling them. The other half percent was fraud from a stranger.

 

[Rex]

When I used to work at Home Depot they would have us scan the card in the register. If it didn't scan, then we had to pull out the big bulky fuckers and do it the old fashioned way. Well those things were far and few between finding them. One customer's card didn't work. So when the store receipt printed with space for the card he showed me that if you place the card under the space allotted, and rub a pen long ways over the card it'll copy the info straight onto the receipt.

If it's done that way, then at the end of the night an employee could've just copied the numbers down on a separate piece of paper, and had a blast.

 

[the nature boy]

I've been the victim 3 times. The most expensive one was for $500. Surprisingly the credit card companies knew before I did. They were all done on pay pal, so I think right that probably raised flags.

 

[Skizac]

When I was a poor college student, I used my bank debit card to buy a book online from Amazon.com. 3 days later, my entire bank account had been cleaned out. That was really fun, considering that i had no other funds available.

It took the damn bank 2 months before I saw my money.

The order page used https, so I can only assume that some Amazon.com employee stole the CC number.

 

[the nature boy]

or they got hacked

 

[Warik]

Hmm there are many stores which apparently copy your card details when it is swiped through the machine. No way of telling that this is what they are doing... I'm assuming Amex use swipe machines, and not the "ironing boards" that we use for Amex over here, or used to, before they joined the electronic network along with visa and mastercard....

My AMEX is typically swiped. The only time it hasn't been swiped and ironed instead in recent history was one time I paid for pizza with it (but that was over a month ago) and yesterday (which was after the fraud took place).

Also, I'm sure you know this, but NEVER let them take the card out of sight. Another common one is going through trash at a munipical dump for discarded card slips, or your trash, to get the number, and making internet/phone purchases.

lol.... restaurants. That's the only time they take the card out of sight, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it happened. Don't really think it would have been at the dump... I always retain receipts and card statements for the past year or two, and those I throw away are viciously shredded. Sucks how those who are irresponsible with their credit don't have problems, yet those who take every precaution and then some get nailed. bah.

Luckily without an actual signature you will get your money back.

Anyway, sorry to hear that. That sucks.

AMEX has already assured me that I won't have to pay for any of the stuff. Now I have to call them back again tomorrow because the fucker also bought gas with my card. $5.01! Shit man... at least pay for your own gas. If you want to make a fraudulant charge, please have the courtesy to make it something large so that it'll be worth my time to call it in. Now I have to spend 15 minutes on the phone for 5 fucking bucks. Before I just wanted this guy in jail... now I want his heart on a plate.

-Warik

 

[Warik]

It is getting common some stores around here want to get an "imprint" of your card when you purchase something. They put it in this thing and it puts the card numbers on the reciept and it goes in the register. I told them to kiss my ass. No telling where that piece of paper will wind up.

Can you insist on not getting your card imprinted and still be allowed to pay with it? I get all pissed when the restaurant people walk off with my card and don't come back ASAP. I'd take it up to the register myself if I could.

-Warik

 

[Fonz]

Re: img_pltnmcrd.jpg

This has wasted a whole 15 minutes of my Saturday afternoon. I'm going to have someone's ass for this.

The part that sucks is that when I think waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, the only merchant I've used this card with that I don't normally use it with is some company in Indiana where I ordered my Palm keyboard (which uses yahoo secure shopping carts). The charges were made in FL... and obviously in a store. So either someone made an exact copy of my card, magnetic stripe, verfication #, and all (in the mere 2-3 seconds time that I wasn't in physical possesion of my card), or some dumbass in the store wasn't suspicious when the customer read his account number off of his hand and said: "oops I left my card at home HEH HEH HEH"

Anyway... CC company is taking card of everything... and I have just held a memorial service for my American Express card. He died at the young age of 8 months, but his contributions to society will not be forgotten.

-Warik

LOL....thats funny.

It happenned to me also, but with my VISA.

I got a transaction in my statement from France(no less),
when I was in England.

I was like ????????!!

Normal VISA sucks. Go platinum.

Better yet, AE CORPORATE.

Fonz

 

[builtbc83]

happened to me on my Visa Check card a few months after I got it. I went online to look at my statement after a made a fairly large purchate to check my balance, and there was a charge for $500 worth of flower in Texas- I'm in Jersey, never been to TX in my life, and sure as hell would not buy $500 worth of flowers even if my own mother died!

They gave me a temporary credit right away, but I had to sign a bunch of papers with who might have had access to the card and shit like that. A few months later they sent me a letter sayin that their investigation was over and that the credit was not perminant.

Just was a paint to spend all that time on hold, and then have to change card number for all the services that I normally have auto billed to my cred card- gym membership, phone bill, cell bill, car payment, etc.

Bern

 

[Warik]

Yep now today I have to go through the auto-bill changes bullshit. Fortunately I didn't have to sign anything... it was just a total telephone time of roughly 20-30 minutes to get everything resolved. Too bad they don't tell me who did it.

-Warik

 

[john937]

Warik, I hope you're taking this seriously.
The retailer isn't the only way your card could have been stolen.
I was the victim of "Identity theft" last November, and I'm still trying to get this shit straightened out.
A crook blew thru town, rented an apartment in the same apartment complex, got a key to the community mailbox, and used it to force the master lock and open the whole box.
He cleaned out everybody's mail several evenings in a row, closed it back up, nobody knew the difference.
He then went thru bank statements, credit card statements, etc and went to Geneology websites "What's your mother's maiden name?" to get key dates and info to guess people's ATM password.
He cleaned out about 3 thousand dollars out of my checking account, and deposited 30 thousand dollars in hot checks, and then drained those funds as well.
I've had to spend several unpleasant afternoons with my bank, recieve phone calls at work from the FBI, and Secret Service, file reports with the police dept and write letters to credit reporting agencies to get my credit report cleaned.

Take this seriously. Cancel the card. Change your ATM password. Check your bank balances. Write the credit agencies and get a copy of your credit report.

 

[Warik]

Warik, I hope you're taking this seriously.
The retailer isn't the only way your card could have been stolen.
I was the victim of "Identity theft" last November, and I'm still trying to get this shit straightened out.
A crook blew thru town, rented an apartment in the same apartment complex, got a key to the community mailbox, and used it to force the master lock and open the whole box.
He cleaned out everybody's mail several evenings in a row, closed it back up, nobody knew the difference.
He then went thru bank statements, credit card statements, etc and went to Geneology websites "What's your mother's maiden name?" to get key dates and info to guess people's ATM password.
He cleaned out about 3 thousand dollars out of my checking account, and deposited 30 thousand dollars in hot checks, and then drained those funds as well.
I've had to spend several unpleasant afternoons with my bank, recieve phone calls at work from the FBI, and Secret Service, file reports with the police dept and write letters to credit reporting agencies to get my credit report cleaned.

Shit... THAT is nasty. Of course I took it with a moderate level of seriousness, as some bastard basically attempted to blatantly steal money from me, but I was never as concerned as I am now after hearing your story since I standard procedure seemed to just be: "cancel the card, open fraud case, get new card, all is well." Truly the only possible way this guy could have had access to my card is either through reading my mail (not possible since I've received all my bills and none were tampered with) or by some merchant. Had to have either been a restaurant or the pizza delivery guy, since in no other case does the card go out of my sight.

One thing that did piss me off was that I was looking over some old receipts last night and I noticed that Bennigan's restaurant prints the ENTIRE credit card number on the receipt. Shit... when I leave the table with the signed receipt there, some guy could just walk by, peek, and leave!

I just wish there were better forms of security for this shit. If it were up to me I'd have my credit card password protected and just have the cashier whip out a keyboard instead of a pen when it's time to pay for something. Fortunately for me AMEX has been very helpful and cooperative.

Thanks for the info. Awful story dude... hope everything gets resolved.

-Warik

 

[Fast Twitch Fiber]

The order page used https, so I can only assume that some Amazon.com employee stole the CC number.

Thst's not likely. There are only about 6 people in the company that have access to your entire credit card number. The rest of the people can only see the last 5 digits unless you call and give your number over the phone.

 

[circusgirl]

Re the sotelen number - it could have been someone at your ISP maybe? Sniffing the keyboard? If they sniff the keyboard they don't need to break the encoding of https....

 

[Skizac]

Re the sotelen number - it could have been someone at your ISP maybe? Sniffing the keyboard? If they sniff the keyboard they don't need to break the encoding of https....

"Sniffing the keyboard" would require some sort of trojan to be running on my local computer. Possible, but very unlikely.

Port sniffing would not work either, since the https encryption happens before the packets are transmitted.

Other possibilities include: Somebody physically copied the number from my card when I wasn't looking, or somebody remotely read the electromagnetic radiation from my monitor as I typed in the credit card number. Both are very unlikely.

The most likely scenarios are that it was a malicious Amazon.com employee, or Amazon.com got hacked, and they were able to cover it up.