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.
Yep, my debit card was used once. My bank canceled it and issued a new one. Also, my United MasterCard has twice been used illegally. Once, they caught it and called me. The second time I saw the charge on my statement. I did not lose any money on any of these frauds.
I knew a guy where that was actually true
(Network does not cover all transactions.)
Do NOT expect Apple to step up to help her. They didn’t when I had a bunch of unauthorized charges. Don’t expect the local cops to go out of their way to bring charges if the suspect is out of state. Her only hope is getting the bank to work with her.
I COMPLETELY STOPPED purchasing apps from Apple on more occasions than I can count I was charged $99.00 for a 99 cent app it
was always a nightmare trying to get charges removed!!!!!! I NO LONGER
purchase apps!!!!!!!
Credit cards fraud doesn't directly affect your bank account(s), so no money leaves your bank account. Also, credit cards generally have better liability protections.
Card readers can have skimmers that copy the data. My brother-in-law used an ATM which had a piece of tape holding a wired skimmer. He knew it didn't look right, but used it anyway and lost $800 from his savings account he didn't get back (some years ago in another country before current protections were added).
Bank account or credit card account? In other words, was it a debit or a charge?
Good advice.
The bank said she would get her money back in a few days and they issued you her a new temporary card and will send her a new one. However, if it has happened once, it can happen again - and again. There must be ways to stop this. I have heard about all the security breaches, etc. but never paid much attention until it hit home. Now I am furious and realizing how wide-spread it is. And it is frustrating to see it getting worse, not better, and that criminals continue to get away with it.
Well, at least that made me laugh.
Debit. She doesn’t have any credit cards. I asked her how it could happen and she said “who knows - Ebay, Amazon, Walmart”. I wonder if it is more prevalent with online transactions or in stores? Or can they possibly just hack in directly to banks and steal the information? This has to cost banks billions. You would think they would come up with a better system of protection.
You got ripped off by someone giving to Obama??? Dang, talk about insult to injury!
Good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.
Great advice.
They would get somebody at a retail store to put a skimmer on their credit card reader. They would collect a bunch of numbers and associated pins, load them onto blank magnetic strip cards and then hit a couple hundred accounts at ATMs around the lower mainland area of British Columbia.
There is a big difference between a credit card and a debit card.
A credit card is a mechanism to help retailers sell more stuff. The main component of that mechanism is a business relationship between the creditor and the retailer. Part of that agreement is that the retailer is supposed to insure the person buying is the person on the card.
A debit card is different in that the PIN number is the security feature. Despite the vulnerability of putting the PIN number into the retailers card reader, the responsibility of PIN security is still largely on the holder of the card.
It’s happened to me twice, once with an Amex card and once with an ATM card. Amex was excellent and reversed the charges quickly. My bank took a couple of weeks but reversed it as well. It’s terribly annoying and inconvenient because you lose your card for several days until you get a new one. Now I have monitoring set up on my accounts so I get alerted to every transaction that crosses them. Also annoying but gives you early warning
Yeah, was more upset over the Obama campaign donation!
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