Fraudlent charges on credit card

[scard192]

This seems to be a topic that comes up frequently (unfortunately) so I thought I would share my experience yesterday. I had a phone call (and e-mail) from Chase about a fraudulent charge on my Chase Amazon credit card. Someone in Los Angeles tried to charge $142 to Forever21.com. Chase declined the charge and contacted me. I live in MA and the address they tried to ship the order to was "and extremely long address". Very happy that Chase flagged and declined this.

The thing I find most disturbing is that this credit card has never left my wallet, never has been handed to or scanned by a merchant. The ONLY place I have ever used this card was to place orders at Amazon. Sure doesn't make me feel very good about shopping at Amazon anymore. Chase did mention that Amazon uses a lot of third party resellers, but still...

Kind of suprising that this happened as I would have thought that this particular credit card was the least likely to have this happen to as it has never left my wallet.

 

[snowy76]

Sorry that happened to you!

Security breaches, unfortunately, happen at all levels. So it might be Amazon, but it might be Visa/Mastercard (there was a report of a major security breach with them about a month and a half ago - our credit union sent us a notice about it).

As much as people complain about Chase in general, in my experience they are stellar when it comes to detecting fraud and giving the customer a heads up, as they did in your case. We have two cards with them, and find we get a fraud alert almost any time one of us travels out of state - they double check the activity when we call back and we're good to go.

Still, it's unsettling to know your info is/was out there. I know that feeling - one time Chase called us and the charges were definitely NOT ours. Glad they were able to catch it in your case!

 

[DOREEN1779]

This happenned to me a couple years back. I had two charges appear on my card from gap.com for 58.00 and 68.00. I did not use the card a lot but did have the card in my wallet. The Customer Service Rep told me that there is a program which thieves use that randomly select numbers and dates till they get a hit. If the charged amount is below $100.00, it usualls slips through because of the amount. They took the charges off that day. Since then, I make a point of looking at all account activity on all of my credit cards at least once every 48 hours, including pending charges.

 

[erincon23]

There was just a news report showing that thieves can get your credit card numbers right from the cards in your wallet -- there's a scanner of some kind that can "read" the card info as you walk past someone holding the scanner. There are some metal card holders designed to prevent this, but the better idea (at least to avoid this type of crime) is to take all cards out of your wallet that you don't need on a daily basis and leave them at home.

 

[OceanAnnie]

This seems to be a topic that comes up frequently (unfortunately) so I thought I would share my experience yesterday. I had a phone call (and e-mail) from Chase about a fraudulent charge on my Chase Amazon credit card. Someone in Los Angeles tried to charge $142 to Forever21.com. Chase declined the charge and contacted me. I live in MA and the address they tried to ship the order to was "and extremely long address". Very happy that Chase flagged and declined this.

The thing I find most disturbing is that this credit card has never left my wallet, never has been handed to or scanned by a merchant. The ONLY place I have ever used this card was to place orders at Amazon. Sure doesn't make me feel very good about shopping at Amazon anymore. Chase did mention that Amazon uses a lot of third party resellers, but still...

Kind of suprising that this happened as I would have thought that this particular credit card was the least likely to have this happen to as it has never left my wallet.

We had a similar thing happen to us recently. We physically still had our card. But someone in Sweden (IIRC) charged around $12. Our charge card company (rep) called us to ask us about it. I *think* the small amount was a test to see if it would go through and then big charges would follow. Thank goodness for the consumer protection division the charge card company employs.

The difference in our case is we do use our card frequently. No telling how the information could have landed overseas.

 

[OceanAnnie]

There was just a news report showing that thieves can get your credit card numbers right from the cards in your wallet -- there's a scanner of some kind that can "read" the card info as you walk past someone holding the scanner. There are some metal card holders designed to prevent this, but the better idea (at least to avoid this type of crime) is to take all cards out of your wallet that you don't need on a daily basis and leave them at home.

I saw that! Incredible.

If those clever thieves could use their brain power for good think of what they could accomplish, maybe then they wouldn't have to steal.

 

[scard192]

Sorry that happened to you!

Security breaches, unfortunately, happen at all levels. So it might be Amazon, but it might be Visa/Mastercard (there was a report of a major security breach with them about a month and a half ago - our credit union sent us a notice about it).

As much as people complain about Chase in general, in my experience they are stellar when it comes to detecting fraud and giving the customer a heads up, as they did in your case. We have two cards with them, and find we get a fraud alert almost any time one of us travels out of state - they double check the activity when we call back and we're good to go.

Still, it's unsettling to know your info is/was out there. I know that feeling - one time Chase called us and the charges were definitely NOT ours. Glad they were able to catch it in your case!

I am very happy with Chase too. I have 2 other credit cards (total of 3) with them and have always found the customer service to be top notch and am very pleased with how they handled this incident. I check my credit card activity on line several times a week but Chase took care of it before I ever saw it.

I had my credit card # saved on the Amazon site as I often buy 99 cent Kindle books and didn't want to have to get out the credit card every time I made a small purchase. I won't put the new number on my account and am going to buy a $25 gift card and add that to my Amazon account for purchases.

 

[scootch]

Another very happy with Chase!! They have caught fraud on mine twice and also have called twice about things I bought just to be sure I bought them(like a washing machine).

 

[robinb]

Chase did mention that Amazon uses a lot of third party resellers, but still...

Chase doesn't know what they are talking about re: third party sellers. *I* am an "Amazon Marketplace Merchant" and sell under the "New and Used" heading on Amazon. Amazon itself processes all the credit card purchases and sends us the money. We NEVER see someone's credit card information.

There was just a news report showing that thieves can get your credit card numbers right from the cards in your wallet -- there's a scanner of some kind that can "read" the card info as you walk past someone holding the scanner. There are some metal card holders designed to prevent this, but the better idea (at least to avoid this type of crime) is to take all cards out of your wallet that you don't need on a daily basis and leave them at home.

I thought that was only with RFID credit cards and not regular credit cards. If you could dig up the news report I would be curious to watch it.

 

[bdoyledimou]

they don't have to see your credit card, scan your credit card, charge your credit card. You don't even have to use it.

Because credit card numbers are generated by an algorithm. One you know that you can generate numbers too an then just slap them on a counterfeit card.

this was a scam back in the 90s well before rfid.

 

[Swimalie]

they don't have to see your credit card, scan your credit card, charge your credit card. You don't even have to use it.

Because credit card numbers are generated by an algorithm. One you know that you can generate numbers too an then just slap them on a counterfeit card.

this was a scam back in the 90s well before rfid.

Agree. Credit card numbers are easy to figure out. We had a charge on our American Express a few months ago that we didn't make. We use our card on the internet quite a bit so the credit card company didn't think anything of a new charge. We caught it and marked it as fraud. They investigated and 10 days later found in our favor. I had them issue me a new card (since it was on my account) and the new card arrived the next day. We've had this same card for about 6 years with no other fraudulent charges on it. They were good about taking care of this.

 

[scard192]

Chase doesn't know what they are talking about re: third party sellers. *I* am an "Amazon Marketplace Merchant" and sell under the "New and Used" heading on Amazon. Amazon itself processes all the credit card purchases and sends us the money. We NEVER see someone's credit card information.

good to know, thanks.

 

[erincon23]

I thought that was only with RFID credit cards and not regular credit cards. If you could dig up the news report I would be curious to watch it.

As I'm not sure which show I saw it on, I couldn't find it on Google. I did find this, however: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5772197_do-scan-credit-cards-purse_.html, which explains what you mentioned, about the RFID cards. But how do you know if you have an RFID card? And I don't remember the show that I saw mentioning RFID. QVC sells a wallet to handle this, also, and I don't remember them saying anything about RFID. I could have just missed it, though - not at all saying that it's cards other than RFID cards.

 

[robinb]

But how do you know if you have an RFID card?

I don't think they are very common in this country. They have a little chip in them and I think it says it has a RFID chip on the card itself. It's a selling point so you can just wave your card near the card reader instead of swiping it.

 

[Fire14]

I don't think they are very common in this country. They have a little chip in them and I think it says it has a RFID chip on the card itself. It's a selling point so you can just wave your card near the card reader instead of swiping it.

My debit card and I know my Dad's Lady friend card both have the wave thingie. Her's is a Chase card not sure if it is Debit card or not, mine is another Bank. My card says something like pay wave or something on it with frequecy looking logo on it.

 

[Pugsley]

We had an incident last week where someone bought 2 computers ($1,200) on our card. I don't know where they got the card number, but it must be somewhere I shopped online because they also had my name and my address (any maybe the security code). They bought the computers from HP online. The weirdest part was the delivery. I think they placed the order on Friday and the computers were shipped by FedEx. We got a notice from HP in the mail on Monday that they had been shipped - TO OUR ADDRESS but with a different person's name on them!! I was really worried that someone was staking out our house and was going to grab them when they were delivered. We called FedEx to tell them not to deliver them and they said they had already been picked up at a local FedEx office on Sunday. The thief apparently intercepted them before they were delivered. WTH??? I can't imagine how FedEx would let someone do that. They couldn't have had any ID with our address on it. And on a Sunday? I'm thinking a FedEx employee may have been in on it.

By the way, that evening we checked eBay and sure enough a brand new in-the-box computer matching the description of what they bought was for sale and the seller's address was in our area. We were going to alert the credit card's fraud department the next morning but suddenly the eBay listing disappeared.

 

[reveusetoujours]

I don't have a lot of dealings with Chase, I have one cc which I try to keep paid off since I got caught up. But they seem pretty good to deal with. I had a charge for $12 from a piano store in GA, I told them I live in NC and haven't been to GA nor do I play piano and they took it right off. I think they charged it back to the store, I dunno if they had a typo or whatnot and put my #.

 

[Belle & Ariel]

We ended a cruise in Vancouver and rented a car for the day using Discover which we used any where it is accepted. We stopped at a gas station at the airport to fill the tank and had to use our Chase Visa. When our plane landed in Atlanta I turned my phone on and had a message from Chase about suspected fraud. We had put less than $10 in the tank and there was another charge at that station a few minutes later for $97. An attendant had run the charge since pay at the pump did not work and I guess he figured he would give himslf a nice tip!
I think Chase did a great job.

 

[mom2cookies]

we just had 2 purchases made to 2 of my DH's cards through Amazon for Kindle downloads ( i'm guessing ). Amazon was good at taking care of it and tracked it to the dope head that was making the purchases. Needless to say DH got 2 new cards immediately.

 

[Pesky]

I don't think they are very common in this country. They have a little chip in them and I think it says it has a RFID chip on the card itself. It's a selling point so you can just wave your card near the card reader instead of swiping it.

It will become more frequent given certain large card association mandates to merchants and issuers. Yes, there are "sniffers" that simply read NFC (near field communication) data, go off and make up white plastics off of it. There are inside jobs at banks and financial services companies. There are hacks at all aspects of the payments chain. There are credit master attacks where they simply randomly generate numbers or proceed sequentially until they hit a good one. There is old-fashioned dumpster diving. Basically there are a lot of ways to compromise your card that have little to do with you. The key is being vigilant about charges.