Posted on 09/30/2014 6:12:56 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
Today is payday for my daughter. This morning she checked her bank account and found a charge for almost $700 from an Apple store in California. We live in SC. She had to go to the bank and try to get it straightened out. It will be several days before she gets her money back. How does this happen and what can you do to protect yourself? I am outraged and feel like the chances of catching who did it are slim.
PayPal was pinging my checking account, so I closed it out.
Unsecured mailbox, trash diving for statements, phishing expeditions, computer security breach, buying stolen consumer info, card skimming, stealing the physical cards, and my personal favorite was a cashier that would memorize the credit card numbers of customers as she processed the cards at the point of sale. Those are just a few ways that come to mind.
As for finding them... If they were smart they turned around and immediately sold whatever they fraudulently purchased.
The first question is did they use her credit card data or debit card? Debit cards are being targeted more now due to the way they can be used to pull cash easier than a credit card.
The Mrs and I once received a 30K+ IRS refund check made out to just her where we had been filing jointly all our married lives, coming onto 40 years.
She thinks it was an inside job by someone in her work environment who was hoping to intercept it there, but luckily it came to our home as addressed.
We returned it to the IRS immediately, with a few civil though stern comments as to how they could have been so damned stupid. They sent us some song and dance about how my wife should now use some 4 digit PIN rather than her SSAN on all future returns. That was several years ago and we’ve continued with her SSAN with no evident problems since.
I’ve had two .com accounts hacked. Walmart.com and Newegg.com. Both were caught before any goods were shipped to the perps.
Also had my Netflix account hacked. Logged in one day and found two watchlists. Had to change the password.
We do cash, trade, and barter.
Unfortunately, this crap has been going on for a long time.
Back in the early 1970’s, my father received a call from his bank and they said that someone had rented a car in Minnesota with his credit card.
My Dad didn’t know how the thief got his credit card number, and my Dad had never been to Minnesota, not even for one day, in his entire life. Fortunately, the credit card charge was deleted by the card issuer.
Stayed at a 5 Star hotel in New Orleans, only used the card to check in. Card data was stolen, hit for $2K
2008 someone stole my credit card number(don’t know how) and first charged an amount to the Obama campaign and then charged a much larger amount to a cell hone company in S. Africa. I told the credit card company both charges were fraudulent as they wanted to remove only the cell phone charge!
Put a FREEZE on all three of your credit score accounts PRONTO
Several times on the credit card. I don’t know how the company does it - but they catch it early. It was always a small charge to some place out of state. Like $3 or something.
They told me the thieves do that to see if the card number has been found stolen or not before they move onto the bigger ticket items.
Spouse’s credit card information stolen via reader at the pump. They turned around and ordered thousands of computers and electronics online. We monitor things daily, so we called the credit union to report it before the transactions cleared.
Our preventative measures:
* Don’t use your PIN at the pump, do all transactions as credit, even with a debit card
* Monitor your accounts, checking balances daily
* Do a lot of business in cash and check again, instead of debit cards.
* Decouple debit card from savings, so draining one account doesn’t lead to them draining the other.
I change both my and my wife’s bank ATM/VISA cards to our two interest checking accounts at least twice a year. We do not use the debit/ PIN we only use credit. We rarely use the PIN for cash only withdrawals. We are not so lazy we cannot write a check at the bank for X in cash when needed.
So many ways. A waiter at a restaurant swiping the number and code while he's running her dinner charge in the kitchen. An illegal credit card scanner (i.e., "skimmer") attached to the ATM, the gas station pump, etc. Having purchased something at Target, Home Depot, etc. Crooked web sites. Phishing or "social engineering" schemes where the bad guy got your daughter to divulge the number to him. Keyloggers on public computers where your daughter entered her CC number. You name it.
Dont use debit cards. Use credit cards. this way they dont take money out of your bank account.
Exactly. Had my debit card stolen at a restaurant. they created a new one. Too bad for them they used it at Walmart. Walmart by the way....video tapes every transaction. Just an FYI.
I had $15000 bucks swiped from an account years ago - it totally wiped me out at the time. I had never used my card online nor had I been stung gang of card readers. Someone had got into a system somewhere they managed to get access to a few million dollars worth of other people’s money. They had set up false businesses online and where basically laundering the money through hose fake businesses and then the money was quickly transferred from those business accounts to other banks then they went and cashed out. They were caught - I am pretty sure they were in California. As far as I remember they used Amazon to register the businesses with and as the point of sale. I got my money back thank God but it was very worrying.
Friend has his checkbook stolen from his vehicle; perps made the mistake of writing checks at Wal Mart. When the checks came back in his monthly statement, he went to WM. Took seconds-camera zoomed in one of his former employees’ wife writing the check at the register. BUSTED! The cops showed up at their house en masse just as their children’s school bus was dropping them off. (BTW, his daughter was HS Valedictorian).
S'okay, thanks to mr. mulato and band of chuckleheads, all my cash now comes in the coin variety.
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