Popular Post Tom King Posted December 10, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 They pinged it for $10, then made two trips to Buffalo Wild Wings. One charge to Boost Mobile-don't know what that is, but may lead to some clues. Another charge to a costume shop. One night spent in Extended Stay hotel in NY, but I think the one that they will catch the perpetrator with is that their electricity bill, on Long Island, was paid with it. Totaled about $550 over a couple of days. The phone numbers for the hotel, and electric companies were on the bank statement, and they were called about it. The hotel manager called back, after Pam had cancelled the card with the bank, and said they'd found some identifying information, but wouldn't go into detail. Pam thinks the info was hacked when she used a vending machine when she took our Niece to the ER, but not sure. She knows to be more careful what she sticks her card into now. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted December 10, 2018 Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 Ugh!! Sorry to hear you're going through that. In my experience, card issuers are pretty good once you alert them to the fraud (at least my credit companies). I saw a video clip of a person installing a 'skimming' machine onto the card reader at a convenience store, and I was just blown away by how fast and innocuous it was. Then they go back days later to collect the skimmer and get all the info. Was her card a debit card or a credit card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 10, 2018 Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 Good reminder! I travel a great deal and only use a card when I absolutely have to. I also use life lock which always notifies me of my card activity. Sorry you had to go through this and I really appreciate the reminder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted December 10, 2018 Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 6-7 years ago a bunch of charges in Miami showed up on my card. Bank said the charges I did make during the same timeframe made it impossible for me to be running a bar tab in Miami and they removed the charges & had me a new card in about 36 hours. Boost Mobile is a cellphone provider. They might have paid a bill or bought a phone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted December 10, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 It really hasn't been that big of a deal for us yet. I just happened to be walking through the office when she was looking at the statement, and she asked me if I knew what those charges were. I looked, and pointed out that they were on her card, and not mine. If I hadn't been walking through then, she might have easily just passed it off as something that I bought. Her account was pinged for the ten bucks on Nov. 6, and the last charge was Nov.21. The places she called said they were reversing the charges, and our bank said they'd take care of it. They cancelled that card, gave Pam a temporary card, and are sending another card with different numbers. I thought it was funny that they paid their electric bill with it. I told Pam maybe they had their current turned off, and went to spend a night in a hotel. Should show up on the dumb crook news if anyone bothers to follow up on it. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted December 10, 2018 Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 I use to say that if crooks took as much time trying to find a job as they do cooking up ways to steal, but your fellow’s just too darn stupid to find work! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted December 10, 2018 Report Share Posted December 10, 2018 We had an airline ticket show up on our credit card once. I can't imagine an easier way to find the culprit than to just check seat 18E when the flight lands... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 49 minutes ago, Tom King said: ...One charge to Boost Mobile-don't know what that is, but may lead to some clues. . its the prepaid arm of of Sprint Wireless Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted December 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 One must not have to be very smart to steal card numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted December 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Just now, pkinneb said: its the prepaid arm of of Sprint Wireless I thought it was probably something like that. That charge was $37. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnG Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 32 minutes ago, Tom King said: The places she called said they were reversing the charges, and our bank said they'd take care of it. They cancelled that card, gave Pam a temporary card, and are sending another card with different numbers. A similar thing happened to my wife a number of years ago, they made a couple small purchases to verify it went through, then spent a couple hundred in some online games. I didn’t even bother contacting the places to get them to reverse the charges, that’s the bank/credit card company’s job. Just notified the bank and they went through the charges to verify which ones weren’t my wife, took the bogus charges off her account and issued a new card. If the bank wants you to do the legwork, it’s time to switch banks. I only use cash when absolutely necessary, credit cards these days offer far better purchase protection and you can get cash back. Win win in my book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted December 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Pam just called the numbers listed on the line items on the statement to see where they were. All were in NY, or NJ. We hadn't been North of Virginia last month. The lady she talked to first was the hotel manager. She offered right away to reverse the charges. Then she called the second number, and it was some electric company on Long Island who said the charge must have been to pay an electric bill. At first, we thought they might have been some online purchases that we'd forgotten about. After looking carefully though the statement, the other small charges were found. After talking to those places, Pam called the bank, and they did take it from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Bob Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 7 minutes ago, Tom King said: After talking to those places, Pam called the bank, and they did take it from there. Unfortunately that is probably all your going to be able to do. Just before I retired in 2016, the county prosecutor upped their prosecutorial threshold from 10k to 15k. Meaning the loss had to be greater than 15k before they would even think about prosecuting the Aholes. In Seattle we (the police), would politely take a report and that would be last you heard from us, regardless of suspect information. The problem is so widespread that there is no consequences for the crime. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted December 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 That's sort of what I figured. I doubt anyone will bother with $550. I doubt anyone this dumb would know how to steal, and use the card numbers on their own, so they probably bought it from someone else, who mostly likely has done it more times than this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 A couple of months ago I noticed charges on my statement that I didn't recognize. Called Visa & the rep went right to work. In a period of 4 or 5 days there were over $32,000 in fraudulent charges. The rep said it was his largest fraud of the week. I had to get a new card, which was a bit of a pain, but Visa immediately reversed all the charges & made the whole thing as painless as it could be. They would have caught on sooner, but I semi-regularly make international (Canada & US) purchases of several thousand dollars so there was no real change in my patterns. No idea where the perps got my card info from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Forget the cops i think i'd be more afraid of the CC companies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Having had my credit cards compromised more than one time I have come to the conclusion that the credit card companies just consider fraud a cost of doing business. I doubt they will even get this perp's address from the electric company. In fact if the perp walked into their office and confessed to stealing the card I don't think they would do more then change the number and send the cardholder a new one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legenddc Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 It's sad that they all just get away with it. Almost makes me want to figure out how to steal a credit card and stock up the shop... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 14 hours ago, Tom King said: If I hadn't been walking through then, she might have easily just passed it off as something that I bought. This is my bigger fear, that I won’t even notice the false charges buried within my legitimate ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 It takes open communication or separate accounts. My wife and I combine and communicate. Don used to keep separate accounts and sit down monthly with his wife and split the bills. The thing fraudsters count on is combined accounts with lack of communication. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnG Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 I'm sure the amount has to be pretty high before the credit card company would even consider taking action. If there was a large enough amount from a single merchant, the CC company would likely go after the merchant for reimbursement, then it would be up to the merchant to go after the individual. For a few hundred or even a few thousand the bank would likely end up spending far more in researching and taking action than just eating the cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnG Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Just now, Tpt life said: It takes open communication or separate accounts. My wife and I combine and communicate. Don used to keep separate accounts and sit down monthly with his wife and split the bills. The thing fraudsters count on is combined accounts with lack of communication. This. Or the large number of people that never even bother to look at their statements or activity and just pay whatever they are told. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 Of the fraudulent charges on my card, 1 was just under $5000 & 2 others were over $9000 but the Visa never questioned them. I don't know just how the merchant is affected by these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 24 minutes ago, drzaius said: I don't know just how the merchant is affected by these. That's a good question. As I understood it, the move to chip-verification (versus swiping) was being pushed as the merchants were more likely to be held liable if it was a swipe. Just the CC company way of forcing the changeover. Since then though it'd be interesting to know how that typically unfolds even if it was a chip transaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted December 11, 2018 Report Share Posted December 11, 2018 With the increasing shift to internet purchases thd chips become less effective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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