Posted on 06/13/2013 12:06:12 PM PDT by Theo
Not at all. There are far more egregious — and expensive ways — to commit fraud than just credit card fraud. I know of someone whose identity was misused to the point that he had problems with the IRS — without any help to navigate the mess. Lifelock does that. They also contact credit bureaus and have them send reports, monitor who might be trying to open very large accounts or mortgages in your name, etc... It’s very cheap peace of mind. Anyone can go it alone if they wish, but I wouldn’t in this day and age. I’ve seen the mess that can happen and it’s only you to try to prove your innocence. No thanks.
That makes sense. Thanks for the info!
We haven’t yet. I’m waiting to receive documentation from Discover Card before going to Macy’s. I want to have the police report filed, and the police investigation under way, before giving Macy’s the heads-up.
LifeLock specializes in identity theft. This was credit card fraud.
They said it may have been compromised. Only the 3-digit code on the back changed, not the 16-digit number on the front.
Turns out it was closer to $14,000 that they spent over the course of 2 days. Yeah, that is a shopping spree! :-)
Thanks for that advice. I’ll make sure to confirm that with Discover.
Question: Somebody stole my credit card number and charged thousands of dollars. Why didn’t LifeLock alert me?
"To put it bluntly, LifeLock identity theft protection does not alert you about credit or debit card fraud. We have two great reasons for this..."
I'm not sure how LifeLock would know when it was you spending on your own or someone else. I think that means they would have to alert you after you engaged in any kind of commerce with your card.
Sign up for the Credit Kharma website. It’s free. Check it every month.
Holy cow..14,000, are you sure a member of the GSA or IRS didnt go on a little shopping spree LOL
a number of years ago I purchased some text books for homeschooling from a Texas publisher and used my internet only CC. That afternoon I received a nice call from the CC asking me whether I was shopping in New Jersy and purchasing hundreds of dollars of clothes.
I said no.
They said they would send me out a new card and number immediately.
I am sure the woman I spoke to called the card into friends.
who probably made up a card to splurge with.
Nasty business.
boy my cc company knew my spending patterns and caught the fraud within hours.
I was simply taking their advertising at face value.
Their ads imply that they can do it, so they should be doing it (or begin to advertise more honestly).
The truth is that all they really do is bill you.
Interesting. There are two three-digit codes on the back: a letter and a three-digit sequence number over on the left of the signature panel and the last four of the account number and the three-digit CVV code over on the right of the panel.
I just looked through a stack of old Discover cards. Sometime in the mid-nineties, they started printing the full account number on the back (four groups of four), followed by the three-digit CVV code. About 2005, they went to printing a letter, a three-digit sequence number, a patch of blank space, the last four of the account number, and the three-digit CVV.
Also, sometime around the middle of the last decade, they started the practice of sending out new cards with the same account number, expiration date, and CVV, with only an incremented sequence number. They've done it to me a bunch of times, never with any indication of fraud, but always some sort of pitch when I call the number to activate the new card. Obviously, a marketing ploy.
Most recently, they've started incrementing the expiration date by a month and also changing the CVV.
One thing to note: If a new card has been issued with the same account number, expiration date, and CVV, old cards with different sequence numbers should get declined when swiped (the sequence number is part of the swipe data). However, bad guys could still use the account online if they can guess the billing address. Typically, account number, expiration, billing address, and CVV is what you need online.
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