Posted on 09/25/2025 7:46:35 PM PDT by exDemMom
Well, I feel obliged to post this here because I have now been the victim of fraud three (possibly four) times in the last month.
The first and second incidents took place in Dallas at the end of August. I did not know until I looked at my bank statement that my debit card had been used at a Dallas area restaurant. My husband's debit card had been used at a different Dallas area restaurant. We live in San Antonio, so it's not like we were in the Dallas area and forgot that we stopped for bites to eat. My husband has never used his debit card, and I only use mine at grocery stores. Our bank refunded the fraudulent charges and issued us new debit cards.
The third incident of fraud involves someone trying to use my phone number to sign up for California LifeLine four days ago. I had never heard of this entity, but when I looked it up, I found that it is a CA state program to supply phone service to people who can't afford it. I found out about this because I received one of those access codes that you get whenever you try to sign in to an account. I sent an email to report the fraud, but they told me I have to call to discuss the issue. I will call tomorrow.
The fourth and last incident happened tonight. For some reason, I was looking at my email trash and saw two emails from Walmart there. They never came into the inbox, but went directly to trash. Apparently, I had ordered something, and then Walmart cancelled the order within a minute. This is strange, as I have not ordered from Walmart in over a year. So I went to open up my Walmart account and could not because my password was wrong. Then I used the change password option and was able to get into the account. It showed five street addresses that are not mine. It showed the last four digits of a phone number that is not mine. I immediately contacted Walmart and talked to their representative in India, who closed the account for me and gave me a lot of advice on avoiding fraud. I told him that I do all that, but somehow still was the victim of fraud. He said that I should be able to open a new account with the same email address and correct phone number.
A few months ago, I received notice through my antivirus program that my email is out on the dark web. I checked and found that there were hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to access my email. Maybe that's related?
My WF replacement CCs come overnight, so I’m OK with that service. I now check all gas station pumps, convenience stores etc for ‘skimmers’, which are externally visible - if you know what to look for - as well as a guy sitting in a vehicle, with a laptop, doing the CC number collection. And I also check the online charges 1x-2x/ week.
“I hope you are *NOT* going to have the same problems.”
Whenever you buy something on the internet, DO NOT let that site save your credit card info for future purchases. Also, use well-known secure sites to do your online shopping like Amazon or Walmart. You can buy just about everything on those sites.
I know it's a pain, but use dual authentication to log into your most critical sites like your bank. Having to also text a code back on your cell along with entering your password is impossible to hack.
You might be able to ‘turn off’ your husband’s debit card if you aren’t going to use it. I know I can turn off my credit and debit cards. —Anyway good luck with getting this under control. You’re getting some really good advice.
My Girl friend had a santander account and got a card she never used. A bunch of charges showed up from CA. I told her to switch banks. she didn’t but reported the card. Some of this is inside jobs. Santander (spanish company sucks by the way) You need a phone to take money out of the bank.
And carry your credit cards and paper cash in an RFID protected wallet(or handbag). I watched a teenager bost a credit card number from someone’s purse in a cash register line with avery small skimmer. I walked back into the stacks and re-emerged when the kid had reached the counter and as his card was being inserted into the scanner I told the clerk. She grabbed the card and saw that it was not he card that showed on the scanner and stopped the purchase and called police. The kid ran out.
Agree
I have met several prison guards or retired prison guards and have come to the conclusion that many, probably most, are nuts. What kind of person voluntarily puts himself into prison for thirty years. Dealing with criminals for an entire career must leave a heavy imprint on someone’s outlook.
Got a scam email this am from Chase saying learn how much fraud is out there, click here. Always look to see where emails come from, the email address gave it away as fraudulent. And never click on anything in an email.
I got had once at a gas pump because I was not paying attention. I recovered when I checked my accounts on line same day and went back to inspect and found all 9 pumps had been tampered with. I concluded that it was the store manager who did it. It is quite useless to call police on these things, even when they happen to one in one’s own community. A year later I noticed in daily passing that almost no cars are at the pumps there any more, nor in front of the convenience store.
YES, good point.
Mine is RFID protected.
Following...
Passwords. It might not be a bad idea to go oldschool and have 4 x 8 cards with your passwords in case your computer goes down. I do have anti virus that has a password vault, but I still have a box with that info. (Website, ID, password, date last changed, challenge question and response.)
The hackers are finding more ways to access people’s data.
That’s what cured me of owning a credit card had extra security so called protection.
My brother kept his but he ended up buying a $10,000 car for someone in Italy.
I worked in 7-11 stores for a few years. You see all types there. I've seen Mafiosos both in CA and in MD.
One night, an obvious Mafioso came in, covered with jewelry, carrying a huge wad of cash, and wearing the peculiar types of suits they wear. I figured that the Mafioso wasn't going to cause any trouble because the Mafia is all about big crime, not pestering poor clerks at a local convenience store. I treated him just like any other customer.
After he left, one of my regular customers came running in, all breathless. "Do you know who that was?" he asked. "Weren't you scared?"
"Nope."
That is good advice. I had the Walmart account deleted, but I still have the emails showing where the merchandise was supposed to be sent. I found a total of nine attempts to order on my Walmart account, and Walmart cancelled all of them within a minute. There might have been more, but I had deleted my email trash, and all of the Walmart emails were going straight to trash. I was lucky I even saw them at all. This was a multistate operation, as the addresses were in CA, FL, NY, and NJ.
They don't likely live there but live nearby and "steal" the packages from the porches they get the items delivered to.
Porch thieves are so bad these days! We had gone on a vacation for two weeks, and I had asked for my package deliveries to be held. But they weren't. Thanks to my doorbell cam, I knew that the deliveries were still made. So, there were all those boxes sitting on my porch... waiting for us when we got home. Thank goodness.
I’ll have to look into the ProtonPass.
I know that Proton has extra services if you pay for the email service. So far, I’ve just been using the free option.
I’ve always been careful where I use my debit card. I only use it at the grocery store (because I can get extra cash without paying an ATM fee) and at the ATM (when I pay the fee anyway because I don’t need anything at the grocery store).
The fact that the debit cards were used in Dallas and not locally suggests to me that someone got our debit info by some means other than physically skimming our cards.
We changed our passwords for the bank account immediately upon learning of the fraud.
I decided to review my virtual cards today. I deleted some and locked others. I'm considering locking all of them, since if I really need to use one, I always have the option of unlocking it.
I deleted the Joann's virtual card with a great deal of sadness. I used to order stuff from them all the time. :(
I use a little metal wallet that opens like a clam shell. Those wallets break, but (fingers crossed), I've been using this one for about five years and it hasn't broken yet.
As for the rest of your suggestions, thank you. I will be working on changing passwords and freezing credit bureau accounts over the weekend.
I'd always thought I was careful. But not careful enough, I guess.
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