Check your credit card statements!

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

I guess I have been lucky as this has taken a while to happen to me.

I opened my credit card statement this morning and there was a $53 charge for Amoco Oil in Brooklyn NY dated 6/3.

I have NEVER purchased gas from Amoco in my life ( Amoco has always been the most expensive place to buy gas in NY and frugal me would have to run out of gas on their corner to spend that kind of money ) and I haven't been in Brooklyn in at least a decade. Not to mention that my Accord on EMPTY couldn't fit $53 in gas.

YEP someone has my card number. Better yet, they are running a card thru the ATM charge at gas stations ( there are more that are not on my statement ). Since the physical card is in my wallet at the moment, I guess thieves have gone hi-tech and can CREATE them down to the magnetized strip.

I reported it immediately and the card is now cancelled ( the only card I've used for 11 years ) and I await a replacement. I am not liable for any of the charges but will have to fill out affadfavits. I have several companies that auto-draw on it so the real work will be calling them all, from the NYTimes, to EZ-Pass to Verizon and AT&T, once I receive the replacement.

I admit that sometimes I don't pay strict attention to things for a month or two. I got lucky that this month wasn't one of those!

So PLEASE check your statements carefully. Watch out for FRAUD!

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

Sorry for your hassle, Lawren, but I'm glad you caught it early. A few years ago my daughter saw a charge for $39.95 for a store she didn't recognize. I called up and asked, and it turned out it was for membership to an internet porn site!! I told them there was a mistake, my daughter did not order this. They told me they had both her name and address so obviously she did. Well, I mentioned that she was only 17 years old and boy did their tune change quickly. The card was cancelled and it turned out 2 more internet porn sites tried to access it.

[itchyfeet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close itchyfeet]

Yep, same thing happened to me. Several charges for airline tickets in India!
Card was cancelled & I was reimbursed after filing a fraud affadavit.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Happened to us to. Mostly charges to women's clothing stores, including a couple of charges in Paris.

My wife figured the card was double swiped at a store she visited. She said whoever got the card had very similar tastes as her - same stores she shops, same types of clothes. etc.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

Lawren,

Yea, me too. They were able to charge a couple of thousand dollars, and then the credit card company stopped them. They called me after putting a stop on the card.

I was also covered for everything, but what a hassle. I also had automatic payments being made from that card. So, I had to call and cancel and then set everything back up again after I got my new number.....

After that incident, I check my accounts on-line, daily.

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

We're switching to the new Marriott card that comes with a free night a year, so we haven't been using our Alaska Air card. I noticed a charge for Napster which all my kids say they don't use. Well it turns out that over a year ago my 16 year old son signed us up for a trial membership which switched to a $14.95 /month membership which I only noted 2 days ago.

They cancelled my membership and refunded the last 3 months but I had to eat 9 months of napster.

READ YOUR CREDIT CARD STATEMENTS !!

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Same here. I noticed a small charge on our credit card and it was for a donation for a petition I supposedly signed about protecting eminent domain in CA. I never gave them my credit card number but I did contribute to the politician of the web site where the petition was mentioned.

Do they sell our names and credit card information too? When I called the 800 number, one of the choices was to dispute a campaign distribution, so I wonder now how many people are being charged this small little charge on their credit card but they don't dispute it as they do not check their credit card statement and the $10 fee will not break the bank either?

We cannot be too careful.

[Icc5 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Icc5]

Not me, Not yet

So far we've been lucky but what I worry about are places such as restaurants that disappear with the card to go scan it. I understand they can take a picture of your card or some people have a device that they scan it thru and it captures the numbers. It scares me since we are going on a two week vacation soon.
Bart

[grest Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close grest]

Sorry this happened to you, Lawren. We, too, had the displeasure of that experience. The credit card company advised us at the time to call one of the three big companies that do credit ratings (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion). We called, and they reported it to the other two...no cost involved here, and they knew that there might be large bogus charges that we weren't involved with.
Pain in the neck, isn't it? And a little bit scary that someone can so easily accomplish this..
Connie

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I always match receipts to the credit card billing statement every month. You might also want to scan your telephone bills every month, there are charges that can be there too (and the phone company is'nt dispute friendly).