Well thankfully Ian was looking at our joint bank account online last night and noticed a couple of charges to an ExxonMobil (which we boycott because of their anti-gay policies). Not to mention the charges were for $100. Even with the high gas prices I can’t fit that much in my tank!
Turns out they were in Cambria, New York! And they were on my credit card linked to the account. Someone had obtained my number and probably encoded a dummy card with it. So, of course, I immediately begin stressing: how did they get it? Spyware on my computer? A receipt? A hacked online database?
But, you can’t get too stressed about it. It happens and all you can do is take steps to stop it from happening again. Here are the steps I took:
*Immediately called the bank and they deactivated the card number. I did have to call back today to get a new card, and I have to call back tomorrow to get the dispute forms mailed to me. It’ll take a while, but at least I’ll get my money back.
*Obtained my credit report from all three credit reporting agencies (you now are entitled to get one free each year from each agency) and made sure there were no fraudulent accounts opened or no false collections tied to my account. (It’s really scary how much these companies, that you may never have heard of or even knew existed, control your life financially!)
*Placed a fraud alert for 90 days on my credit. Any attempts to open a credit line on my account have to be personally approved by me on the phone and I have to verify a list of personal information.
*I’m going to watch where I’m storing my credit card numbers online now (always make sure the page you’re on is secure in a browser and the page you submit your credit card to is secure as well). Plus, I’m going to be more careful with my receipts and make sure there’s not a full printed number on them (and tear them up anyways when I throw them away).
So, now I get to monitor my bank accounts carefully for the next few weeks to make sure nothing else fraudulent pops up on the other accounts. Thank goodness for online banking!
don’t know if it helps, but I have a credit card exclusively for anything I do on the Internet. It makes it a little easier to watch out for those things. I think I had porn charged to it once. I’m all for porn mind you, but if i’m charged for it I better have at least gotten to watch it.
June 4, 2006 @ 11:01 pmI agree with Vic–I never use my debit card online. We had a similar experience to yours 2 years ago at Christmas, except it was a $3000 shopping spree at multiple stores in Boston! Online banking does indeed help catch the damage quickly. You should really get a nice cross-cut shredder for home (not that it helped in our case–we’ve been a shredding household for at least 4 years). We just got a new shredder that does CDs, credit cards, and will shred junkmail still in the envelope!
June 5, 2006 @ 7:44 pmTurns out it’s a ring of credit fraud that’s been happening in the New York area to USAA. The people apparently encode random numbers and expiration dates that match the credit card number algorithms on cards and try them out until they get one that works. The nice thing is the money is back in our accounts already.
June 6, 2006 @ 12:00 pmHopefully the new number is created using a different algorithm!
June 6, 2006 @ 10:43 pm