Vent, need advice, on cc theft online

[TravelMommy]

Omg, imagine my shock when I look on my cc charges and see someone has charged 1000's of dollars worth of stuff. Anyone have any suggestions on doing online shopping without having your cc numbers stolen??? Ugh!!!!! I only shop at "major retailers" online and it still amazes me that someone can do this!!!

 

[cjbcam]

Just because they used it online does not mean they got your card online. Our card had almost a thousand dollars charged on it this summer. Our bank called us to see if we had used our credit cards to buy these things online since we never buy anything online. So it may not be from your online spending. What a pain hope you get things all cleared up

 

[TravelMommy]

a guess just a byproduct of doing business today

 

[3PrincessesAndaFrog]

Sorry...it happens all the time. Our cc is pretty good that most of the time they deny the charge before it gets that far.

I have heard people buying prepaid cc with exact amount of purchase then throw card away. A pain in the butt but no theft.

 

[TravelMommy]

I may try that for a while

 

[greentea]

Ugh, that really stinks. Even though you aren't liable for the charges, it's always a pain to have to cancel and deal with that. It could have been online shopping, but it could just as easily have been a physical store -- a lot of them have had security issues in the last year or so (Target, Home Depot, some tampered card readers at Barnes and Noble, among others). No way to know for sure, probably.

There are sometimes ways you can manage online shopping to be a bit safer. One of our credit cards (Bank of America Visa) allows us to create new card numbers that can only be used for one store, and that we can put a max limit on. You can delete the number at any time. See if your bank has something like that?

I feel like sometimes smaller websites can be safer for online shopping because they aren't targeted as often as the big stores. But really it can happen anywhere.

 

[eyeheartgoofy]

I'm sorry - we have had fraudulent charges a couple of times (once for a single transaction over $5,000 to an online company!) and they were both resolved quickly.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

There are multiple ways a person can gain access to your CC. Skimmers on ATM machines or gas pump. Or paying your bill at a restaurant and the server takes your card out of your sight. The person at the hotel who swipes your card when you check in. The person who seemingly bumps into you who has an RFID reader. To the hackers who hack into big company websites such as Target Home Depot. So being careful online is only on facet of ways to safe guard your card.

 

[momof1princess]

OP, if you ordered anything from Amazon or Wal-Mart, your # might have been stolen during the big hack that was publicized last weekend. I was a victim too. The cc company was great-they helped me dispute the charge on Saturday, cancelled the card and had a new one at our door on Monday afternoon.

 

[MomToOne]

If you have and use a credit card these days, it's almost guaranteed that at some point there will be fraud. There's no need to over react. Just contact your bank, they will handle it and you won't be liable for the charges. That's the beauty of credit cards and the laws that govern them (debit cards don't necessarily offer that same level of protection).

Some banks are better at identifying fraudulent charges - Chase always amazes me with how they can catch a fraudulent charge as it happens and deny it, as opposed to my normal spending. If you feel the need to take some sort of action beyond reporting it, perhaps you should get a credit card from one of the banks with stronger fraud identification.

 

[momto3pirates]

Just happened to me this week as well. It was a $3 from Brazil. Chase caught it and closed the account. Just a pain to deal with but glad it was caught.

 

[ICF]

sucks, but that's a part of using CC's in the 21st century.....much better than debit cards though as they don't actually take your money.

 

[maleficent32]

OP, if you ordered anything from Amazon or Wal-Mart, your # might have been stolen during the big hack that was publicized last weekend. I was a victim too. The cc company was great-they helped me dispute the charge on Saturday, cancelled the card and had a new one at our door on Monday afternoon.

Do you have a link to any story about a Walmart and Amazon hack, I can't find any recent ones. Thanks.

My Walmart acct was hacked but instead of using my cc to purchase something they added 2 new CC #s to my account and tried to purchase gift cards. I'm assuming they were stolen CC#, and the transactions were denied. I contacted Walmart and deleted any of my payment info on my acct and they ended up closing my acct and told me I have to use a different CC to make any purchase from them.

OP, does your CC company have virtual cc numbers that are only good for one purchase?

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I'm really surprised that your cc company didn't catch this right away. In the past year, I have had to replace my AMEX card twice, a Chase Visa card once and someone also hacked my AT&T account and tried to order several new phones. Every time, I was immediately notified that there had been possible fraudulent use of my account.

I have no idea how my info was pirated; I did use my AMEX at both Home Depot and Target.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Do you have a link to any story about a Walmart and Amazon hack, I can't find any recent ones. Thanks.

.......

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/hackers_release_thousands_of_a.html

 

[maleficent32]

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/hackers_release_thousands_of_a.html

Thanks. I did find that and a few others but none of the big news guys seem to reporting it. I did see one article where they stated something about the hack being fake, that the accounts and passwords released were fake.

I cant imagine that the largest online retailer gets hacked and the everyone loves to hate Walmart gets hacked and its not all over the news
Not sure I believe Anonymous' claim, maybe they were just trying to steal Lizard Squads thunder for their Microsoft and Sony denial of service hack.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Back in Sept, we were spending 1 night at WDW before a Disney cruise. When we arrived, we put our stuff in the room and headed to the bus stop to visit Epcot and while waiting for the bus, I read my emails and saw an alert that a large purchase was made to a card that we never use. In fact, I don't think we ever used it anywhere. I got it years ago for a balance transfer offer and don't even activate the cards they send me.

How on earth someone got a hold of that number is beyond me! Imagine my stress waiting at the bus stop and trying to call our bank with noisy buses going by.

At the same time, I got locked out of my MDE account because all usernames must now be an email address, not just a username. They also changed the password requirements. So I had to call the help line for that too.

By this point I was freaking out a bit since it felt like so many things were being hacked on me at once. I was relieved when the CM on the phone told me it was simply because my username & pw were outdated.

All this done at the bus stop. You gotta love technology.
For the first time ever, I was relieved our bus didn't come right away.

Now I have alerts set on all our cards that we rarely use so I will know immediately that they're being used.

 

[auralia]

Mine was stolen we figure at a local pizza joint. Defiantly is to only online.

 

[TravelMommy]

Thank you all for comisserating with me!

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Thank you all for comisserating with me!

It's a pain, but luckily most companies are good about detecting these fraudulent charges quickly and you aren't responsible for paying.