It happened to me: Credit card fraud

TheMadHatter93 · January 2015

I have always been one of those people who viewed identity theft and credit card fraud as "It'll never happen to me" and "No one would care enough to steal my credit card info"... I got too comfortable and tricked myself into thinking that I was being safe. I now realize how incredibly stupid it is to have most of my passwords matching (including my online banking), having websites store my credit card info and using my credit card numbers on any computer other than my own. I check my accounts multiple times a week to stay on top of things.

Lately I have been trying to not use my credit card (with a modest $1000 limit) and keep the balance under $400 with my groceries and bill payments so that it is very easy to pay off plus I get the rewards on my timcard to spend instantly. Yesterday work was almost over and I just checked my timcard balance using my phone because I wanted to grab supper and to my surprise there was an extra $4.74 loaded to the card (1% of transactions instantly loaded)... so I frantically checked my online banking to find my $500+ in available credit was down to $40... I thought I was going to be sick.

My 10 minute walk home from work was only 3 minutes because I practically sprinted home. After a few minutes I learned the sick truth from my bank - someone had used my credit card number to invest in stocks over the phone. I had to sit down as they put me on hold for the fraud department... in my head I thought it would be simple. The charges in my mind were clearly not mine as I invest through my bank, I thought it'd just be a simple reversal with a new card.

The lady in the fraud department gave me the third degree over the charges and tried to trick me a couple of times to admitting I just wasn't happy with the investment I had made or to admit that I had knowledge of the stocks purchased. Of course it wasn't just a simple reversal either... they'd need to mail me forms that I'll get in 4 weeks to sign saying I dispute the charge. I had also expected them to rush me a new card (as they did when my previous card stopped working) but instead they are just sending it through regular mail and it'll take a week or more to get it.

After I hung up the phone I just sat on the couch motionless... if this charge didn't get cleared up it could financially ruin our future we planned. Now my next week is going to be spent cancelling my automatic bill payments and using cash for everything.

The hardest part about this is not about the money, because I trust that it'll be sorted out... but rather the emotional trauma from this kind of thing happening. I keep on feeling like I did something horrendously wrong. I also no longer feel safe using my credit card online as I regularly did. It is also very difficult to not take it personally... the first person I spoke to explained that they put through a dollar transaction the day prior to test the card and that it is commonly seen when card numbers are sold by hackers.

I just really wanted to share this because everyone always thinks that it'll never possibly happen to them.

strickland8052 · January 2015

I know how you feel. Someone stole my water bill payment (a check I had written) out of our outgoing mail in our mailbox. They then used my signature and checking account info to create a fraudulent check and write themselves a $900 check from my account. Law enforcement, the post office, and my bank did not seem concerned with finding the perpetrator. It feels violating to know that someone has that information somewhere.

Sorry this happened to you!

hoffse · January 2015

Thanks for sharing, and I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Credit card and debit card fraud are real problems, and it can happen to anybody. Frankly, this is one reason why I prefer to use credit cards instead of debit cards if I'm going to use plastic... at the very least, my bank account isn't directly linked to any credit card I have. Credit cards have better consumer protection rules than debit cards.

I have had fraudulent charges appear on credit cards a couple of times. Twice from the same Vera Bradley store in town. I actually called the store after the second instance and alerted them that they had somebody on staff who was doing the "oops the card didn't read, let me swipe it again" trick to skim money.

Another common place for credit card fraud is restaurants. Always ALWAYS pay for restaurants in cash if you can. Until the US adopts the European tradition of bringing the card reader to the table for you to swipe yourself, I think it's incredibly sketchy to hand over your card to a complete stranger, allow them to leave the room with it, and then trust that they haven't written down your credit card number, etc. while they are in the back settling the bill.

Also, I would encourage everybody to freeze their credit. Credit card fraud is bad. Identity theft where they steal your SSN and open entire lines of credit in your name without your knowledge is even worse. This has happened to my dad twice. He actually got audited by the IRS because of a fraudulent account opened in his name... the bank had reported the sale of investments in that account, and obviously my dad did not include that on his tax return because it wasn't anything he was even aware of. He ended up working it out, but it took months and it was a huge mess.

If you keep your credit frozen, then no lines of credit can be opened under you SSN while the credit remains frozen. You can temporarily lift credit freezes for short periods of time when you need a credit check performed/credit extended. The credit bureaus will send you a long PIN that you can use to unfreeze your credit temporarily or permanently. While the freeze is in place, however, every credit check will come back as denied, unavailable, etc. That protects you. Every state allows you to freeze your credit at all three credit unions. The fees to freeze credit are really minimal - usually $10 or less per credit agency. The three credit agencies are Equifax, Experian, and Transunion.

Think about the number of people you don't know who have access to your SSN, legal name, date of birth, etc: doctors offices, lawyers and their staff, the people who run standardized testing in schools, banks, government bureaucrats, car dealerships, every college admissions office you ever applied to... the list goes on and on.

Again, I'm so sorry this happened to you. Best wishes for getting it worked out.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2015

I had what happened to Strickland happen to me. I had a bill stolen out of the mailbox at the appartment complex. They made their own checks and spent a couple 1,000 quickly before my bank caught it and shut down my account. It wasn't that big of a hassle because the bank took care of everything, the worst part was it was 2 weeks before I closed on my house. Fortunately it didn't screw up my credit score otherwise I could have lost the house.

Xstatic3333 · January 2015

I'm so sorry-that sounds awful. This kind of thing is very scary. I've been lucky that I haven't been affected yet. It seems like it gets to most people eventually. I try to shred all of our financial documents when we're done with them and don't store CCs on most websites, but some, like Amazon and PayPal, make it pretty hard not to. I also have a hard time with varying passwords. I feel like I'm constantly getting locked out of my accounts for using the wrong one.

formerlyGDaisy09 · January 2015

That's awful, so sorry that happened to you!

This is exactly why I prefer to use credit cards over my debit card. when I was just out of college I had one of my debit card numbers stolen, and it was a huge mess to get it worked out. at the time I had 2 checking accounts, one with a local bank in my parents home town and one with a bank where I live now.

On a whim picking-up chinese food I decided that I'd use the one from my parent's town (I hadn't used it in months, I had several hundred dollars sitting in that account...blah blah I don't really know why i decided to use that one, but I did) several weeks later (again I was younger and not in the habit of checking my accounts all the time) my mom got an overdraft notice from the bank....someone in England had charged $4,000 on my debit card at some grocery store. Fortunately I was able to convince the bank that I had not been in Europe, I think that made it a little easier to dispute the charges....but it was a huge mess. The Bank said that take-out places are some of the worst offenders for stealing information.

hoffse · January 2015

One other thing that people don't realize....

You know those silly quizzes that get passed around facebook? The ones where they are like, "Which Disney princess are you?" or "Are you a child of the 80's?"

A lot of those "quizzes" have questions that correspond to the most frequently asked security questions for banks, credit cards, etc. In other words, when you tell them that your favorite movie is "Beauty and the Beast," some hacker is going to take that info and see if that was the security question you selected when you set up your online bank account.

They're very very smart. Most people don't spend their lives stealing from others, and it's hard for honest people to think the way scammers think.

Please know that you did nothing wrong. The a$$hole who stole your credit card info is the person who did something wrong. The best you can do is remain vigilant. By checking your accounts multiple times a week, you're doing your job to protect yourself, and you were able to stop the problem before it got any worse.

TheMadHatter93 · January 2015

It is really comforting to hear that there are so many other people who have wound up in similar situations!

I feel so bad for those who have had bank accounts hijacked instead because they actually took your money rather than your credit and that it would be a nightmare for me to have to cancel all my post dated cheques and automatic deposits/payments.

I also just hate the fact that most of us will never get the closure of having someone actually punished for the crime they committed against us.

brij2006 · January 2015

Ugh, that is horrible. Both H and I have had our debit cards hacked twice.

However, I'm opposite everyone else, but because of this I actually use my debit card only and have cancelled every single credit card. If we still had our credit cards open, a hacker could have a hayday with our credit in a quick second. We had about $150k in line of credit between all of our cards. That would ruin us if we ever had to dispute it and got the 5th degree about it.

Instead we use our debit cards as a credit card (swipe it and sign for the purchase instead of entering our pin #). Then they are backed by Visa or Mastercard and you have the money back in your account the next day.

We also only keep a few thousand in our checking account at any time, so that way they can only get so far with our debit card numbers. If they hacked our credit card numbers, then they could have racked up $150k in debt. We can handle being out $2k if we had a hard time disputing it, but not $150k.

MommyLiberty5013 · January 2015

Having a CC hacked is quite common. I think mine has been hacked 2-3 times and DH's a few times too. But, due to the CC cardholder agreements, with CCs you aren't held liable.

Debit cards are another story entirely and that's why we don't use them.

A DC is like a portal directly to your checking account. If a DC gets messed up, it messes the account the DC is linked to. On the other hand, if a CC gets messed up, that's it. It goes no further.

Having worked in banks prior to being a SAHM, I saw a lot of customers with hacked DCs. The fraudster would "take" out like $500 and leave the checking account empty and the family would have a mortgage payment due and not be able to pay it. We at the bank would have to figure out which purchases were legit and which weren't and try and refund the fraud ones, which takes time. In the mean time the family, if they didn't have an E-Fund was scrambling to "find" money to pay their monthly bills. Yucky situations all around.

I hate DCs. IMHO, the convenience isn't worth the risk these days. It's inevitable that cards get hacked.

It happened to me: Credit card fraud

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