This morning we received a call from the fraud department of our credit union’s credit card division that they detected some fraudulent charges on our card. Being that the card was apparently my card, my wife let me know and I called the 1-800 number provided. Knowing that we get tons of scam calls weekly from “Member Services” asking us to hit “1″ to speak to a representative about lowering our interest rate, or any number of other possible messages, I was a little concerned to say the least about providing them with my personal information. After Googling for the number and finding many contradictory statements, I simply decided to call my bank directly.
I spoke with a nice woman who took a look at the recent transactions and found that two charges had been attempted on my card at a “St. Paul” Wal-Mart on 6/5 at 11:34:00 AM and 11:34:37 AM. One was for $320 and the other for $312. The first transaction was approved and the second was declined for insufficient funds which was actually because the second transaction had been marked as fraudulent. They had no other information for me at that time but put me in touch with their credit card division to see if I could get anything more from them.
The woman who talked to me from there wanted to know why I wouldn’t call them directly. I explained my being uncomfortable due to the number of scam calls and she told me that my bank repeatedly informs me of what numbers would be calling if there were fraudulent activities on my account. I politely explained that I couldn’t imagine keeping a list of what numbers my bank would call me from to let me know there was fraudulent activity on my card with me at all times. She seemed to understand my comment, however probably didn’t know that by then I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her for being so ridiculous.
Without any more specifics than I had already been given and the promise that they would call as soon as the full billing information appeared on my account (which would include the actual store number instead of just an arbitrary city which could be almost any city in Dakota County as well as St. Paul proper), I hung up with them and contacted the Apple Valley Police Department to report the fraud.
I spoke with a woman who told me I’d have to speak to the dispatcher and have an officer call me back. I did so, explained the situation to the dispatcher and I waited. Fairly soon after, much sooner than I expected, a patrol officer called me back to take down all the information I had. He informed me that I should probably place a fraud alert with the credit agencies and that when I get the actual store number and credit card statements I should let them know. If the store is in Dakota County, Apple Valley would handle it all. If it was indeed in St. Paul, they would hand it over to the Ramsey County.
So we added the fraud checks to the credit agencies and froze the credit card I have in question and now we’re simply in a holding pattern until the full details post to our account.
What I do know is this: we’ve used the card twice in recent times. The first was a flower shop in PA for Mother’s Day. I made that payment over the phone. The other place I used it was at Enjoy! on Mother’s Day for brunch. Perhaps it was coincidence that a stolen number was used in MN and it came from the place in PA, however I have my doubts.
This is just one gigantic hassle. While I appreciate the professionalism from the credit card company, aside from the snide remarks about their phone number, the credit union and the police department, I really had better things to be doing today than dealing with this crap because someone couldn’t resist attempting to spend nearly $700 at Walmart after I used my card to pay for Mother’s Day gifts.
Have you ever had your credit card information or identity stolen? What sort of things have you done as a result of that happening? Did you find the experience to be more of a hassle than anything? Were the people who stole your information ever caught? Did you ever contact the police about it? What do you think happened here to my card number to get it out into the wild? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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June 6th, 2012 at 7:20 am
We had our checking account stolen a few years ago. It was an enourmous hassel. We recieved a note from the Fridley Police with a check that had been made out with our names and account informaiton but not our address or fake company name.
TCF bank, who we did business with at the time was rediculously unhelpful in the whole affair. Refusing to assist us in researching our accounts for other check, refusing to put stop payments on check other than a list we provided them.. it was absurd. We severed a 15 year relationship with them over it.
Even worse however- A certain local big box mass merchant.
When we discovered the account had been compromised we natually shut it down and moved our funds a new account. I had automatic withdrawls set up for most of my accounts and worked on changing them. For somereason, user error I’m sure, this particular account wasn’t changed correctly and when the company went to collect they were notified the account was closed.
This put the account on instant “Collection” status. We started getting phone calls, three first day, telling us that were being reported to the credit services for fraud and blah blah blah. Naturally we paniced a bit, dug and discovered what happened. When I attempted to talk to the customer service rep about what had happened, like Joe Peshe in Goodfella’s the message was “Fuck you, pay me”. So I transeferd money from the new account and paid off the balance in full. The transfer didn’t post the next day and we recieved more treatning calls. Another call to customer service; “We don’t see you transfer so obviously you’re lying about this. Transfer it again and we’ll straighten it out”. I knew better than to transfer it twice as I was pretty sure we’d never get our money back from them. I told them to wait 24 hours for the account to settle. Nope. again “Fuck you Pay ME”. and “Collections will be calling you” and “you’ll never get a loan for the rest of your life”. Followed up with “you’re lying to us.”
OK.. This was a little stressfull. Well guess what teh next day balance was 0. Transfer went through. I waited a week just to be sure and called back to cancel the the account. This time the message was “you’re a valuable customer, this account is important to us and important to you as you build your credit history.” It was quite cathartic to tell the guy “Fuck you” back.
We’re just now getting to the point where we can close down our TCF accounts once and for all and I look forward to explaining to them why we’re dropping a checking, savings, and IRA from them.
June 6th, 2012 at 7:58 am
My bank has only contacted me once for a fraud alert but it was actually me doing the shopping, I was just spending a lot more than usual. I too was anxious about calling the number left on the answering machine so I called the customer service number on my credit card statement and they confirmed it was a legitimate call and transferred me to the fraud department.
A friend (Dakota County resident) also had her wallet stolen recently and the credit cards were used at in St. Paul. Perhaps Dakota and Ramsey county authorties should start working together.
June 6th, 2012 at 9:39 am
I’ve never had a card stolen, but Wells Fargo has a few policies designed to prevent fraud that just end up being a hassle. For example, sometimes if I’m vacationing or out of town or something, they will notice that my card is being used in a location that is not typical, so they’ll flag it for potential fraud. This is fine, and I suppose I actually appreciate it.
The infuriating part is that they don’t make any effort to contact me to verify that it’s actually fraudulent. They just put a hold on the card and wait for me to contact them. Except that I don’t realize the account has been placed on hold until I’ve just pumped 15 gallons of gas into my car and the cashier says, “i’m sorry, your card has been declined.” then I have to stand there like an ass hole for 20 minutes while I try and tell Wells Fargo that it’s actually just me trying to use my own card.
June 6th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Reuben,
I have to alert Chase that I am going to be traveling, what dates, and where for their card, which is what I use exclusively when I’m traveling, or they’ll do the same thing to me. If they put the note on the file they don’t shut me off.
It’s a hassle to call but it’s better than doing it from some store with 6 people in line behind you.
June 6th, 2012 at 10:21 am
I’ve gotten hit 3 or 4 times over the years. I find that it’s generally either an internet based transaction or after using the card at a restaurant that does it when I can pinpoint it. There’s been skimming rings that operate out of local restaurants and been busted here in the past too. Easy to steal at a restaurant as they have your card out of your sight, can run it through a skimming device and can also note the CVR number easily.
I stopped using a check card altogether a few years ago after getting my checking account hit for $750 from a Home Depot in Florida. I had to wait at least a week for my bank to refund the money and nearly had some bounced transactions as a result. At least if it happens with our credit cards now I never have to actually cough up the money and wait for the bank to refund it, though it is still a hassle. I’ve never bothered to report anything to the police though – that’s the credit card company’s problem in my opinion since they are covering my losses.
I’ve also gotten several others on credit cards, one of which I only used for online transactions. Got hit for random transactions for some obscure vendor on one card. Honestly, I’m at the point where a website doesn’t take Paypal, Google Wallet or amazon payments, I won’t use them because I can’t trust their security procedures are adequate enough to cover my card use and proper use and deletion of my information. That seems to have curtailed the online incidents.
The whole system is a little messed up as I think the Credit Card companies view it as a cost of doing business and aren’t interested in creating new security measures that would in any way impede legitimate transactions.
June 6th, 2012 at 10:41 am
Man, Reuben, you hit that one perfectly. Usually happens to me on a roadtrip across country. My bank seems to be more sophisticated — I once got a call while standing at the gas pump in Alabama. “We’re just checking…your card has been used in 10 different states in the last 3 days.” I appreciated that they didn’t just shut it off like I’ve been used to.
Bill, unauthorized credit card purchases aren’t the worst thing ever. A while back we had a Paypal account tied to one of our checking accounts. Someone hacked in there and drained out a shitload of money (in $1,500 increments until they got to the ‘insufficient funds’ point). That was a freaking nightmare to fix. First, try getting a hold of a PERSON at Paypal. That alone is next to impossible.
What’s worse is that it happened on a Saturday night. Bank or Paypal, nobody is going to help you with fraud on a Sunday.
Next, because it was a certain kind of transaction, the Paypal system automatically tried to the rejected transfer a second time after it was my bank had declared the first one “NSF”. It’s set for one week later which was…..Saturday night again. Paypal should have known that was going to happen and tried to stop it, especially since I had put a hold on the account (per their instructions).
The final blow was that the Paypal Fraud Department told me their investigation would take “up to 10 days” and then the funds would be freed up again. The clock started at the SECOND time they tried to transfer the funds. And what the guy didn’t say was 10 BUSINESS DAYS. So all in all, I had several thousand dollars tied up, some for a week and some for nearly three weeks.
The people at Paypal weren’t rude, but they never called when they said they would and nothing happened when they said it would or how they said it would happen. I was having to constantly call them at every step and beat answers out of them. You would think a company that does so many bazillion dollars in transactions would have tighter control/more knowledge.
Not that they give a rat’s ass, but I canceled the Paypal account and won’t use that payment method again.
June 6th, 2012 at 10:55 am
I had my TCF check card number stolen in 2007. I’m pretty sure that it happened at what was then the Hollywood video rental box at the Cub on Burnsville Pkwy in Burnsville. The guy used the card for about $200 at that Cub, then for about $550 at the Target in Eagan. For some reason the cashier at Target grew suspicious and Target alerted whoever it was that puts a hold on these things. Overall it wasn’t a big hassle. Except that EVERYONE involved could not seem to grasp that the card itself wasn’t stolen, just the number. I think that this is more commonly understood now. TCF contacted me and verified that they were not my charges and credited the money back to my account pending an investigation that would be complete in one month. The only thing I had to do was file a police report. So I call the Burnsville PD and explained to a man what happened. He then said to me, “Do you want me to do something about this?” I think I sat in about 5 seconds of stunned silence not knowing how to respond to that. Finally, I said, “My bank told me that I had to file a police report.” He then completed all of the paperwork. Needless to say I never heard that they caught the man who stole the number, and I seriously doubt that anyone ever tried. At the end of the month TCF sent me a letter saying that the investigation was over and the charges were found to be fraudulent. Being a former Target employee and (somewhat) familiar with their level of security system, I’m sure that Target could have given the guy’s License Plate number to the police…but hopefully they were busy catching murderers and drug dealers instead.
June 6th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
A slightly good-news story:
A few years back, we get a call from JC Penneys. Somebody was trying to buy jewelry in Washington on our Visa card. You read that right. Penneys called about a Visa transaction. Why? Because they were all like “You never use anything other than your Penneys card to buy stuff with us, so our fraud system thought this was weird.”
In fact, Penneys called WHILE THE PURCHASE WAS BEING ATTEMPTED, so we we’re able to say “Oh hell no.” and get the person arrested and cancel that card.
Well played, JC Penney. Well played.
June 7th, 2012 at 1:20 am
Have had fraud on two cards now. The first was a Visa card. The bank (Citibank as I recall), shut the card down after three $400+ purchases were made in Arizona and California. Bank had me fill out an affidavit the purchases were not mine, cleared the transactions, canceled the card number, and issued me a new card within about three days. It was quick and easy, and I was pleased.
The last time was with Wells Fargo and my Visa Cash/Debit Card. There were a series of small transactions made in Honolulu the same day I had used the card locally here. The bank called, and closed the card down there and reversed the transactions. THe good news ended there. After that, it took three calls and trip to my local branch to finally get a replacement card after 6 weeks, despite being told I should see it within 10 days everytime.
More recently, Bank of America shut down a card when I ran it through a gas pump for a 2nd time in one day. That was the first time I’ve ever had that happen – and I end up running my card at the same gas station twice in one day for a variety of reasons (multiple cars and one that I can’t fill the tank when its empty on one charge – I hit the transaction limit). Even worse, when I went though the exercise of getting it to work again, their fraud screening posed several questions that didn’t have a right answer. I was not impressed.
June 7th, 2012 at 8:19 am
About 3 years ago I was in Maui for vacation and logged into the public Wi-Fi and like a genius checked into my e-trade account. I made a couple of transactions and logged out and didn’t think of it for a second.
Fast forward a week and I log into the same account (this is an account that held the majority of the savings that was going to pay for college for two kids, so think of a number in which you could buy two pretty nice cars). The account said $0.
Anybody with a computer IQ of 47 knows what I just did. I was made to understand that my keystrokes were lifted by someone near by me and within about 6 hours of that simple log in from Maui, my funds were directed to an account in Brazil or some such place.
Fortunately, E-Trade thought that was suspicious and put a hold on the funds until they could make sure it was me. Given that I only checked that account irregularly, if the criminals would have perhaps done just a little bit better job and not routed the funds directly to an offshore bank, I could have been wiped clean.
I am quite aware of my stupidity there, but feel free to flame me up even more if you would like.
June 7th, 2012 at 9:10 am
Lefty, that’s actually a pretty damned good reminder about public wifi. You got mugged, man. While it’s pretty much LL.org policy to give you shit, I’m going to pass on your invitation to taunt you here. I’m gonna guess the SSID you use probably had some pretty crafty man-in-the-middle shit on it. (I could be way off base.)
It’s a pain in the ass, but your story as nudged me to make sure I’m using VPNs and/or stuff like DNSCrypt. The latter is pretty simple and, as an OpenDNS fan myself, I kind of like it. YMMV http://www.opendns.com/technology/dnscrypt/
June 7th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Jorn,
I have no idea how they got my info exactly, but it was a good lesson about public wi-fi to be sure, I am just glad it was not compounded my me losing the money actually. I will tell you, when I logged on to the zero balance I about lost consciousness.
In retrospect, I am amazed that E-Trade would allow an account like mine to be hacked with as simple as username/password. I have a token now and am a bit more careful where I log on as you might guess.
lefty
June 7th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Same thing just happened to my husband 2 times in 3 months. Both times we ate at “enjoy” just prior to the fraudulent charges.
June 8th, 2012 at 7:53 am
Uhm, did I just see 3 votes for Enjoy! here? Yes, I think I did.
June 8th, 2012 at 8:06 am
The bigger lesson is don’t be checking your investment accounts while on vacation in Maui. Hopefully in addition to security acumen, your a much less-stupid vacationer now.
June 8th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
I’ve had my debit card info stolen before. Huge hassle. We figured out the number probably got lifted at a pizza place. My bank at the time told me that restaurants are one of the most common culprits.