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?
Because just having them text me a number is not secure enough? I'll look into the dual authentication.
I got an email like that this morning, too. It was definitely from Chase, so I clicked the link to learn about fraud. It has advice on reporting fraud, to the local police and to the US Consumer Protection Agency fraud department. I'll probably be making a fraud report to them.
Thank you very much!
I hear so much about fraud these days. My county has a website where you can request to receive notification if any papers with your address are filed. This is supposed to help with title fraud. The convenience of the computer revolution helped to revolutionize crime, as well.
Very good! In the Capital One app, it only takes a sec to lock or unlock a card. Sometimes I get an alert from a merchant “card declined” and it’s always because I forgot to unlock it.
"My county has a website where you can request to receive notification if any papers with your address are filed. This is supposed to help with title fraud."
That wasn't a member ("made man") of the Mafia. That probably wasn't even a low-level "associate." That was probably a common "hood."
Regards,
I have cards with different limits to limit potential damages. So, if I purchase online I use a card with a very low limit.
I really wouldn't know about the different ranks in the Mafia! Having them come in to 7-11 to buy stuff is the only contact I ever had with them.
Oh, and common criminals did not look like that. We got them at 7-11, too.
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