got a strange email from target.com today

[kdonnel]

I got an email from target.com that they had closed an account that was recently opened and canceled all merchandise shipments. They suspected that the account was not really opened by me and the Visa card attached to the account ending in 69736 was being used fraudulently.

They suggested I contact my bank and close the Visa account.

I have a Visa card that ends in those numbers.

I logged onto my bank and saw that the card had a zero balance as I knew it should. I have not used this card since February.

I called my bank just to be on the safe side. I was connected with the authorizations department who said the account was receiving 2-3 authorization attempts daily. The charges started coming through on August 9th. None of the charges were going through because they were coming in with the wrong expiration date.

In May the bank sent me a new card with a new expiration date. They wanted to send me one of their mini key ring cards.

Who ever got a hold of my account information had information from before May. They had the old expiration date.

I have only used this card 8 times. Each time was with the old expiration date. I never used the new card with the new date.

I wonder who got hacked or who has a dishonest insider?

1. That's My Baby --- A photo service used by hospitals for newborns
2. Winn Dixie --- A grocery store
3. USA Wallpaper -- An on line purchase
4. Tupperware -- From a friend
5. Walt Disney World -- Bought DVC.
6. Amazon.com -- A book
7. TurboTax -- Did my taxes
8. Graphic Dimension -- Bought a frame for my BCV print.

 

[nativetxn]

YIKES! Good thing the charges didn't go through.

 

[KimandBrian]

Did the bank tell you where the thief was attempting to use your card? Was it a local place? I used to work at a bank and we saw everything on our computer system...every transaction and attempted authorization. You might want to get that info if they have it available.

 

[kdonnel]

It was at Landsend.com, Target.com, somethingidontremember.com, etc....

They were all online purchases.

 

[KimandBrian]

That makes it more difficult when it's .com's. I hope your bank just closed the account for you. It's good that you brought this to their attention so they can keep an eye on your account.

My sister's debit card number was used by an employee of Pizza Hut. The police tracked him down after he sent $300 worth of flowers to his girlfriend. What a headache!!!

 

[Pin Wizard]

Did you ask them to close that account and open a new one with a new account number?

 

[kdonnel]

They closed the account and are sending me new cards.

I have requested a copy of my credit report and my wifes credit report from the three main credit agencies. I doubt this is a case of identity fraud. It seems if it was identiy fraud it would be a credit card we did not even open.

One good thing about living in Georgia is we can request two free copies a year from each agency.

 

[MickeyCrazed]

May I ask what company the Visa card was with?
I find it hard to believe the fraud department of that bank did not (would not) contact you directly with this information. I would be really mad to learn about this from an online retailer but not my bank.
I work for a large financial institution, but don't have any credit cards with my own company. It might be weird, but I don't want them learning too much of my personal business.
However, sometimes I doubt my own decisions, because I know our fraud department is excellent and I have heard horror stories about other companies.
My Uncle was actually a victim of fraud from one of my banks main competitors. From everything we can gather it was a bank employee who either committed the fraud or sold my Uncles information to a third party (although the bank would not admit to it).
If you feel uncomfortable giving me the name of the bank I understand. If you want to PM me, thats fine also.
I think you made the correct decision by immediately contacting the bank and closing the account.
The world sure is a scary place these days.

 

[kdonnel]

Originally posted by MickeyCrazed
May I ask what company the Visa card was with?

Bank of America

From what I have gathered Amazon must actually run target.com the same way they run toysrus.com.

Someone opened an account at target.com and registered the credit card with their account. Amazon noticed this number was already registered with a different amazon account and associated with a different ship to address.

At this point they closed the target.com account and sent an email to the email address onfile with amazon.

I ran into a similar problem with paypal. My wife has a paypal account. Our checking account is registered with her account. I tried to create a paypal account in my name and register the same checking account number. They would not let me and locked both accounts. It took a few days to explain to paypal there was no fraud attempt.

 

[MickeyCrazed]

I still can't understand why Bank of America would not question these authorization attempts. I know they were not honoring the charges, but it still seems as though they would recommend that you close the account.
Glad Amazon (Target) contacted you.
Hope everything works out.

 

[floridaminnie]

I use to work for BofA.

 

[dcgrumpy]

Someone got our debit card number and used it for $600 worth of internet porn and chat lines a few months ago. We got the name of the guy who did it, he lives a few blocks away. We don't know where he got it from though. Some receipts have the full card number and expiration date, if you accidentally drop it anyone can use it.

 

[Melora]

If they have a shipping address for this person, can't they go to his/her house (authorites I mean) and catch them? Ive never been able to understand how a person gets a fake credit card and gets away with ANYTHING on line that requires shipping some goods.... If the goods arrive somewhere you would figure it would be easy to figure out who used the card or at least where they are. We had $500 charged to our account several years ago through an online company that we never did business with. We got the charges reversed but it was a pain.

 

[KrnB]

Wow, that's scary. Glad to hear that amazon, which does appear to run Target's site now, has a method to detect things like that.

That is really strange that BofA didn't notify you that you all the sudden had a lot of charge attempts on an expired card.

We bought a paper shredder recently to help protect us. All of our bills go in there when we are done with them as are new credit card apps, etc. I've read a few articles about people taking things like that out of your garbage as they have all the info they need to steal your identity.

It's so scary how prevelent identity theft has gotten.

 

[kdonnel]

A paper shredder would not have helped us.

The account number with old expiration date had to have come from one of the 8 places we had used the card 7 months earlier. The card with the new expiration date had never been used. It was locked in our safe at home to only be used if we new we needed to make a charge we could not pay off at the end of the month.

I think BofA did drop the ball on this one.

Either someone is selling credit card info at one of the 8 places or one of them has been hacked and does not know it.

 

[lvs_eeyore]

I know for a fact that BofA does not contact you. Recently we were trying to check out of the Poly. Well apparently there was a problem with Visa contacting the bank and my room charges were not being approved. I finally had to go to the ATM at the Poly to get the money out to pay for the balance on our room in order to check out. Now this was after they had made about six to eight attempts to get my card approved. Fast forward to about a week later. I tried to use my card and it was again declined. This is a debit card and I knew I had money in the bank. I didnt call and I should have. I figured it was a fluke. A few days later I tried again to use the card and it was again declined. Finally I called the bank and was informed that they had put FRAUD SECURITY HOLD on my card WITHOUT telling me or informing me of anything. Apparently the bank was not getting the authorization attempts from the Polynesian but the fraud department was and banned any use of the card!!! I had to call to find all this out. Not once did I get an email, a phone call, nor a letter. I let them have it over the phone big time. While I appreciate them looking out for me they had no right to put a BAN on my card without first contacting me to make sure there WAS a problem.

 

[lsyorke]

"If they have a shipping address for this person, can't they go to his/her house (authorites I mean) and catch them"

That was might first thought when I received an e-mail that my "order had been shipped" from CCS(a skateboard company) Well I hadn't place an order. When I called they told me that I had called and changed the type of skateboard and the shipping address!!!!!!! When I let them know that it wasn't me they were able to catch the shipment(Thank you Airborne!). I ended up contacting my credit card who issued new cards and told me it had to be an "inside job". I was amazed that they would let someone change the shipping address over the phone with no verification of who it was.
Long story short I didn't get charged for anything, but they wouldn't prosecute since the amount was so small even though they had the address.