Just cleared up a fraudulent charge on a credit card. Anyone had experience with that?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

If so, was it a big charge or small? Several charges or just 1 or 2?

[Blue_Tires]

1. Yeah, some assclown at an old address took out a couple of cards in my name

This was back when companies were still giving cards out to everybody who could write their names on an an order form...

[LynneSin]

2. Yes and the bank cleared it with no questions asked

The guy who stole the card was smart. He bought like $300 in DC Metro passes and then tossed the card. Guy probably knew he had a few hours until the card was missing so he bought something asap and then moved on. The bank wiped out 100% of the charges. I hope the guy enjoyed all the free rides on the DC metro he got.

BTW I do feel lucky with all that I do with online banking and buying stuff that I have never had my account hacked. But I'm smart - I use very complicated password and i change things on a regular basis.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. I didn't actually lose the card. Someone just got the account number somehow and charged 2 things.

One of the two items was for $1. I guess to test if the card was valid.
But with me also they wiped out the charges and then they're going to send me a new card. Thing is, it was my "Working Assets" Visa and I wonder if they'll just send me a new regular Visa.

[noamnety]

4. I had a problem with that once.

The credit card company canceled those charges, closed the account, reopened a new one for me, and told me it was resolved.

Never heard anything else about it ... until years later when we tried to refinance our house, and found out the credit card company hadn't sent us an additional bill for the fraud charge, but they sent it to a collection agency. We couldn't get our house financed until we had it resolved through the better business bureau.

Once you get it cleared up and the credit card company tells you it's resolved, wait a few months or a year, and then run a credit report and make sure it's truly cleaned up.

[revolution breeze]

5. Hubby's card was used in Copenhagen, Denmark.

He had been there earlier in the day flying home from Baahrain (someone read the card over his shoulder while he was on the phone explaining to his mother he had not been "safe" in South America but was in fact in the Persian Gulf). They charged a whopping $12,000. When our credit union opened and saw the activity, verified hubby was in Chicago and cancelled the card immediately. Luckily his ticket was paid for and it was a short flight back to Sea-Tac.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. THAT's pretty scummy.

[revolution breeze]

15. I was thankful for the credit union

They knew hubby was scheduled to come back before the deployment was over and we very watchful of our account. Apparently it had happened to other credit union members. The CSR called me asking if she could have hubbys itinerary for his flight home. When I told her he was on the final leg of his flight she said "Good, I am cancelling his card and reporting these charges as fraudulent. Make sure you bring your card to buy his welcome home dinner."

[LeftinOH]

7. Just last week- got a call from the credit card company stating that

two charges, one for approx $599.00 and another for about $99.00 were made to my card......from somewhere in the United Kingdom. I'm very glad they called to let me know.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. Do you have any suspicions on how someone in the UK got your card info?

My two fraudulent charges were overseas and they followed a very rare overseas purchase I'd made about 3-4 weeks earlier. But that's all I know-- I can't necessarily blame the specific merchant I dealt with without knowing anything about the security involved with overseas purchases in general.

[LeftinOH]

16. Well- I reserved a bus tour in Ireland (for next month) about a week prior

to the fraud alert. That probably explains a lot. The tour operator used PayPal for the purchase; I've never used PayPal before, so I don't know whether to suspect PP or the tour operator.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. My Japanese credit card company called me as soon as I returned from the US once

The phone literally started ringing as soon as I arrived back from the Japanese airport. The guy from the credit card company said someone in the US had been trying to use my card at a US gas station but had been unsuccessful. I told him that was me.

[harmonicon]

13. I absolutely hate that shit.

I travel a lot, and have received weird phone calls and letters about transactions when I'm traveling. I'm lucky to have never had a card denied though. All of my US cards and accounts (two) are joint with my father so that someone could tend to them in the US, and he got a call once that someone in France was trying to use the visa card to pay for dinner... because I needed to pay for dinner.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. I had to close the same credit card twice.

I got hit with three different charges. The first time it was one charge around $40. I caught it within 7 days. The second time, it was two charges totaling $100 or so. I was pretty pissed! I check my accounts about once a week, if I remember.

[Denninmi]

12. I've gone through that several times on my citibank cards.

Say what you want about Citibank, they have always been great about "fixing" the problem with minimal stress to me.

[harmonicon]

14. My problem right now is my bank charging me for using my own money.

My account was down to a few dollars, so I made sure that I went in and deposited my pay cheque in person. I asked for some cash and for them to put the rest in my checking account. Then I bought groceries and gas. When I checked my account last week, I saw that they'd charged me for an overdraft for the gas and groceries... now, how could those be overdraft charges if $100 cash they gave me wasn't an overdraft? All of the funds had to come from the same cheque.

I'm pissed. I'm going to go complain to them tomorrow and hope they sort it out. In either case, I think I'm going to close the account; what's the point if they're going to screw me for putting my money in their bank?

[bamacrat]

17. Yes. $ Greyhound tickets from Dallas to Atlantic City, a Groupon and Papa John's.....

What a trip. We have USAA so everything was taken care of almost immediately and it was hassle free. USAA is the best.

[hunter]

18. Credit card stuff is pretty easy to clear up...

... but it will sometimes leave weirdness on your credit report, so you'll have to check that.

The first time it happened to us, years ago, somebody used our card to call Italy several times from motels in San Diego.

And we just experienced a new one -- someone else was using my kid's social security number so our electronic tax filing got rejected along with our kid's college financial aid applications.

I always want to go kick somebody's butt. Give me their address, damn it! But it seems most of the time the banks or the IRS simply write it off. Law enforcement seems too fragmented and overworked to go after the small time credit card number and identity thieves.

I doubt anyone was ever prosecuted for the theft of phone services. The bank & AT&T simply wrote it off. And whoever used my kid's social security number will simply move on and find another SS# number that works for whatever they are doing, greatly inconveniencing the person this number belongs to.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

19. Yeah, I have a mortgage re-fi in progress so the credit report thing definitely is a concern.

[applegrove]

20. My dad gave my brother a credit card in his name as he travelled around the world

after high school. It was for use only in emergencies. One month there was a bill for $14,000 for bath houses all over asia. Turns out my brother had reported his card stolen in time and we didn't have to pay. Boy did we get a laugh out of that, once it was over.