Credit card fraud, again!!! grrrrr

[Marianne]

I got the following email from Chase yesterday. Maybe these happenings are connected?:

Chase is letting our customers know that we have been informed by Epsilon, a vendor we use to send e-mails, that an unauthorized person outside Epsilon accessed files that included e-mail addresses of some Chase customers. We have a team at Epsilon investigating and we are confident that the information that was retrieved included some Chase customer e-mail addresses, but did not include any customer account or financial information. Based on everything we know, your accounts and confidential information remain secure. As always, we are advising our customers of everything we know as we know it, and will keep you informed on what impact, if any, this will have on you.

I don't think they're connected, but who knows? Last night a friend told me that they got the same email from their cc bank, that wasn't Chase. I guess it was a huge outfit that serviced tons of businesses. Dang. Kind of makes me want to go back to cash only, but then I'd still be using the little key fob thingy at the grocery store.

 

[HEChicken]

Gald the cresit card companies still cover most of the charges.

Actually, that's not true. I discovered this when my purse was stolen a month ago and I had to cancel all of my cards (after the thieves had clocked up almost $3K in charges). The credit card companies are not about to lose a single dime to theft or fraud. What happens is that the retailer gets a charge back for those amounts. In the case of my cards, the thieves first rented a couple of DVDs at Redbox, to check which cards were working. They then filled up their car with gas, got breakfast at Burger King and went to town at Walmart, where the bulk of the purchases were made. When I canceled the cards, the credit card company agreed that no, I was not liable to pay the charges, but they don't want to be out the money either, so they did a chargeback to all of those merchants and THEY are the ones who are ultimately out the money. Well guess what? It doesn't do Walmart's bottom line any good to lose $3K either, so they pass those charges back to.....US - the consumers - in the form of higher prices.

In the course of this experience, I learned that Walmart's policy is to NOT ask for ID when a credit card is presented because - "the customer's don't like it". Well guess what? I would much rather be asked for ID when I can legitimately present it, than pay higher prices when a thief can't. So when I got my replacement cards, I took a sharpie and in the place where you are supposed to sign the card, I instead wrote "Please ask to see ID". It is working great so far - I've had to show ID many more times in the last month than I've ever had to before. And every time I AM asked, I thank them for being conscientious. The places where I don't get asked are the places where the employees don't even care enough to flip the card over and LOOK at it.

 

[JRmom]

I know you can also ask your credit card company to "flag" your card so that you have to be asked to show I.D. when the card is swiped.

 

[Denim Deb]

Don't know about where y'all live, but around here, if you're paying by credit card, they don't swipe it, you do, then sign. And, it doesn't matter how you sign, it accepts the signature. I've not only scribbled, but sign crazy names, such as Santa Claus around Christmas. So, someone could use your card w/out it ever leaving their hand.

 

[JRmom]

Don't know about where y'all live, but around here, if you're paying by credit card, they don't swipe it, you do, then sign. And, it doesn't matter how you sign, it accepts the signature. I've not only scribbled, but sign crazy names, such as Santa Claus around Christmas. So, someone could use your card w/out it ever leaving their hand.

Even so, if you have the credit card company "flag" your card, it should come up on the clerks register to ask for ID. My friend did this after having one stolen. Not sure how this works though if you are paying at the pump for instance. Santa Claus! Good one!

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Someone becomes my husband every few years and fortunately it has not yet harmed us.
First time it happened, to our knowledge was in 86 when someone claimed to be him, in order to work for 5 months in Scott, LA. We didn't even know where that was. But we got the W2.
3 times someone attempted to buy something with a credit card, which apparently the companies thought was a strange purchase coming from us and called home confirming it.....that was really a good thing.
4 years ago, someone used his name and SS # to file an income tax return in another state and received a return, claiming head of household. We had to answer all kinds of questions and were able to prove pretty easy that DH was really who he claimed to be. But it slowed our return down a long time and I had been planning to use some of it for a maternity leave.
Then about a year ago, we had a charge on our phone bill, which was for a service that my 'husband' had authorized via e=mail. I got them to give me my husband's e=mail address, but haven't done anything with it, except add it to the police report and fraud agency.
DH cancelled all his credit cards and closed every account.
I just don't know where we went wrong, but it all started long ago.

 

[Denim Deb]

That's a pain. The only problem we've really had to date is w/my hubby's cousin, or our son. There are 3 people in this area, (maybe 4?) who have the same first and last name. When we got our house, we had to prove hubby wasn't his cousin. We've been charged for cable movies that his cousin ordered, and a had a few other things happen.

Our son was hassled by a cop (we didn't find out until later), and we think it was because of someone else w/the same name that is a problem in the area where he was hassled. Apparently this person is a problem, so the cop saw the name, and didn't realize it was someone else.

 

[JRmom]

Years ago, we were applying for a mortgage and our credit report showed that my husband was behind on child support. Well, he wasn't, and after a little digging we found out it was his brother. Apparently he had fathered a child outside of his marriage and we had an 18 year old nephew we knew nothing about! Oops, cat's out the bag now!

 

[HEChicken]

I have a friend whose husband's sister has the same first name and middle initial she does. Her sister-in-law's birthday is two days after hers, they worked at the same company and were both attending college in the evenings at the same college. As you can imagine, they got mixed up. The college put some of the SIL's student loans on my friend's account and it was a total mess to sort out!!! I never did fully understand how it happened because even with all the similarities, surely their SSN's would have been different but at the end of the day, when you have PEOPLE working in the business office of the college, and not being careful to match up information, mistakes can be made.