So I got my credit card stolen by dorks.
I went to a place for a conference. Six weeks later, my CC called me. When we checked the charges, sure enough, the ones they suspected were fraudulent totally were. Whoever stole my number (I still had the card itself) tried to pay for advertising on Google and Facebook. There was no way I would ever do that.
A few websites tried to run multiple transactions for like $1 to see if it would go through. Also another place tried to charge something, but when asked to verify my identity by Visa they got it wrong.
They suck. Now I hate [state] even more, though I had a pretty good time when I was there. The people seemed nice (little did I know).
Of course there is the usual rigamarole of cancelling the card, getting a new one, re-setting-up my automatic bill pays, etc. Tedious. [State] is full of morons and I hate them.
Disclaimer: #2 has never gotten her cc hacked in [State], despite having been, but she and her partner have had that experience in London and in a much beloved state in the Midwest. And the physically cc stolen twice in Boston. Stupid Boston. Also once in California.
Have you ever gotten your cc hacked? How about your bank account? What happened? What did you do? Do you take any weird steps to prevent it?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
March 26, 2012 at 5:40 am
Had blank checks and my passport stolen a while back. Burglars then used my checks all over the neighborhood, the stores put me on a watch/reject list, the DA got called in because the credit/fraud agencies hadn’t done their jobs. Took over a year before I quit being hassled about the checks. Had to get a new passport, and the passport people still quiz me when I go through any US customs point. It wasn’t complicated, just long and annoying.
One thing that really helped was my signature, oddly. It’s quite distinctive, and the thieves didn’t even have a sample. Every time I see somebody carefully and laboriously sign their names, I think ‘that’s far too easy to forge…’
March 26, 2012 at 6:42 am
Husband accidentally left his debit in the little black folder at a restaurant. The waiter stole it and used it to purchase ~ $200 of gasoline over a period of 2 days. We noticed it while we were checking something online. A quick call to the bank cancelled the card, and they reimbursed us with out much effort.
March 26, 2012 at 6:45 am
#2: That’s usually been what has happened when we’ve had our cards physically stolen. They really like to buy gas! Though one of the Boston ones hit the mall before getting gas for all of her friends. She eventually was caught– you can get away with stealing one card, but if you keep coming back to the same place to steal lots of credit cards eventually the police will start caring and will set up a trap.
March 26, 2012 at 7:09 am
Hacked, no. Stolen, yes. Someone nicked my credit card on my last night in Paris, before I flew back to the U.S. I got a call a few days later from my cc company, who were good enough to notice a string of weird charges out of line with my usual purchases and ask me about them. Sure enough, the card was gone, and I haven’t even realized it. They removed all the fraudulent charges – the Parisian thief was particularly fond of tobacco purchases! – canceled the number, and sent me a new card.
The lesson learned: be extraordinarily vigilant about where your card is when you’ve spent the evening drinking in a wine bar in the second arrondisement. *primps to salve ego*
March 26, 2012 at 8:12 am
Oh, what a nuisance. Also, ooh, I have a good story about this. Many years ago, DH and I took his kids to Europe. Before we left, I warned everyone to remove from their wallet stuff they wouldn’t need while there. Caught up in the nuttiness of preparing to depart, DH didn’t (note: foreshadowing!). On the Paris subway we saw a lovely and neatly dressed young woman who did a beautiful monotone (duo-tone, I guess, as it was sing-song) about her situation: “I have no mother, I have no father, I have no … . I have no money.” And then she passed the hat. We didn’t contribute (or lose any wallets), but it was an interesting glimpse of a particular cultural phenomenon, particularly as the sing-song was delivered in English.
Several cities along in our travels, DH’s wallet was stolen via standard pickpocket maneuvers on another subway. We spent a portion of the next day calling credit-card companies and cancelling cards, but he also lost other stuff annoying to lose (with me helpfully saying, “But I told you … .”). As we were standing at a payphone on a street corner dealing with the cancelling, my stepdaughter came up to us and using the same sing-song voice as the earlier beggar/requester chanted, “I have no fishing license, I have no library card, I have no money.” To this day in our family one can invoke “I have no fishing license” or “I have no library card” as a signal of woe/impecunity. Also DH and I generally try to travel with different credit cards (i.e. to different accounts, though we usually use the main one jointly) so that if similar happens again, we aren’t stuck out of town, cardless.
We had a card electronically stolen that we didn’t use; this was easy to deal with (someone charged ~$5K to it in a shelving store! That was flagged by the credit card as likely fraud and we were contacted, etc. etc.), and my dad, whose affairs I manage (he has dementia), had his checking account number stolen; the bank he uses (First Citizens) was great about catching and dealing with that.
March 26, 2012 at 9:01 am
Yes, I had a corporate issued American Express card hacked several years ago and also a corporate issued Diners Club card. I think the Amex card hack happened because I took a car service from Dulles to my destination in Virginia and back to Dulles again a few days later. My boss (at the time) recommended that I do this rather than rent a car or take a cab since it would be more convenient. The car service only took credit cards, not cash. A few weeks later, I got my Amex statement and it had all these charges made at stores in Virginia like Sears, the Limited, etc. Part of the Amex fraud process at the time included them sending me copies of the of the charge slips so I could confirm with Amex that it was not my signature on the receipts. Well, it wasn’t only not my signature, these clever folks had made a fake card using my real account number but a different name. Of course I didn’t have to pay for any of the purchases and the card was cancelled and a new one issued.
The Diners Club card incident happened after an overnight business trip to Nashville. The only place I used my card during that trip was at the hotel to pay for my room. There were a few questionable charges on my account that Diners Club took care of, and again my account was cancelled and a new card issued.
I have changed my habits due to these experiences. First, I no longer use a credit card to pay for cabs. EVER. I always use cash, even if I’m on a business trip and it’s a PITA to deal with the receipts. I have too many other accounts tied to my corporate card that are critical for me to do business every single day: a phone conferencing account that I use multiple times a day; my mobile phone account that I use all day long; and my corporate travel profile (which I’m using rarely now). Second, when I travel and stay at a hotel with those card reader hotel keys, I never return the card when I check out. I’ve heard/seen reports that your credit card info is added to the keycard when you check in, and since they reuse those cars the easiest way for your card number to get into the hands of someone with nefarious goals is to turn the keycard back in during check out.
March 26, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I don’t know about fancy hotels, but I can definitely tell you that the motel I used to work at never added anything to our key cards. Key cards were keyed in a completely separate machine from the credit cards and payments. We had a machine hooked up to our door system. We’d type in the room number then slide the key card through the machine. I’d double check that rumor. Our motel certainly would have been unhappy with people keeping/throwing out their keys when they left.
March 26, 2012 at 9:33 am
Ugh, that’s obnoxious! I’ve actually never had any of my credit or debit card numbers stolen. *knocks on wood* Or my bank account.
A friend in college had someone keep trying to auto-withdraw money from his checking account. The lesson I learned from that is to never give a utility company direct access to my checking account.
The only time my credit card companies have even suspected my account for fraud was when I was doing some testing for work with $1 charges. That was amusing to try to explain to them…
March 26, 2012 at 10:13 am
I’d say at least 50% of the people I know that travel a lot have had their work credit card number stolen. It says “Corporate Card” right on the top of many of them. I think that number stealers tend to target people who are either noticeably business travelers or have “corp card” written on the cards themselves. I think it’s easier to use the cards longer before people notice there is something amiss. Sometimes it’s 30 or more days before someone does their expense report and notices. The one time it happened to me, my corp card company noticed it almost immediately. It was a no name drive through taco place that took my card number and they were buying things in south america. I forget now which state I was in, but it was on the west coast somewhere.
I’ve had other incidents as well when trying to get cash advances in 3rd world country banks, not at atm’s but actually trying to get cash advances on a credit card with a walk up teller. (One time I was double billed), the other time I wasn’t able to get the money out but it was still taken out of my account anyway. Both times, the credit card took care of everything. I felt silly afterwards because the only receipt I had was a handwritten application with void written on it (which I could have wrote on there myself). This is why I never use a bank atm card like a visa. I don’t even have the visa logo on mine.
March 26, 2012 at 10:30 am
A vigilant card issuer once noticed a string of charges beginning in Atlanta and continuing to California. They suspended the card and when it was declined I called them … to verify that was actually me, moving across the country. No harm, no foul. I learned from that to actually call the card issuer in advance, when I was going to be on the move.
Last December someone stole my debit card number. (I used to use my debit card All. The. Time., but I have changed my ways.) I discovered a fraudulent charge the day after it was placed and the vendor had already reversed it; whatever Match.com uses for their verification process evidently works. (Who uses a stolen card number to try and sign up for Match.com?! Wouldn’t you think it would be something either useful like gas, or re-sellable? Just … stupid!)
Anyway, that all happened the day before a payday so I was online checking my payroll deposit and whoops, there it was. I immediately cancelled the debit card and on my lunch hour walked over to my bank to finalize the process, get some cash, and get a new card issued. Very small amount of hassle, no financial loss, but it was a good lesson for me to use my credit card instead of the debit card, and also not to use plastic for every dumb little thing.
March 26, 2012 at 11:53 am
You know, I think it happened to me once, but it was electronic. I found out because the bank called and said they cancelled our card, here was why, and our new cards showed up in the mail a day or two later. So no trauma at all. (I also bank with a very small local bank, so I think a whole bunch of charges coming in from somewhere else gets caught a lot faster.)
I had a lot more trauma when, in high school, a coworker stole a check out of my purse and wrote it out for $200 in groceries and overdrew my account. The bank tried to pin it on me, but when I asked for a printout of the check, the signature was obviously not mine. Thank goodness for signature cards. I would’ve had to give them about 3 weeks worth of my pay to cover it, so I was a bit panicked.
March 26, 2012 at 12:44 pm
#2 mentions cities and a state. #1 is afraid of retaliation/denied entrance?
March 26, 2012 at 12:52 pm
No. #2’s events were not recent.
March 26, 2012 at 2:21 pm
this has only happened to me once (knock on wood) and it was local, but not an actual card theft. They stole my card number and made a fake card, which they used to get groceries (oddly in the same shopping center I had last used the card, about an hour later) and gas. My credit union called to check what was up, and except for the 20 min drive to get to the branch in person, it was no hassle at all getting the charges refunded and a new card issued.
Which is why I keep my account at that credit union despite there not being a branch near where we live or work.
I think the thing that pisses me off the most about these things is the *time* and *errands* the thief is adding to my plate.
March 26, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Had a card I never activated used in a state I’d never been too. When I contacted them about the charges and explained how stupid the whole thing was I was told how people can use the card if they have the numbers EVEN if you don’t activate it. AND if they get your name (and gender) wrong or the security # wrong. I canceled the card (after lots of yelling at them). Idiots.
March 26, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Hacked yet. Stolen no, but have left card at places and had to place a lost card report to cancel the number before something happened. I have a Citi card, and it’s gotten to the point I often get a new card/number when something happens at Citi (which they never explain what) rather than when it expires. I often find this out when I go to log into my account and find a new card has been issused, rather than getting a phone call or email telling me about that. I was very surprised when Anonymous/Lulzsec hacked Citi I didn’t get a new acrd.
March 26, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Yup. It was an inside job — an employee of the credit card company. CC company closed the old account and reissued a new card with a new account number. Luckily, at that time I wasn’t billing recurring charges to a credit card and so didn’t have to call up a bunch of creditors to change the account number.
CC company no longer puts account number on statements. They figured that one out. ;-)
March 26, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Haven’t had my credit card hacked before, but I check all my transactions on Mint daily. I actually just posted an article on some free tips for monitoring these types of issues:
http://yourpfpro.com/my-do-it-yourself-identity-theft-protection-plan
March 26, 2012 at 5:54 pm
We shake our tiny fists at the thieves out there responsible for our collective tales of woe!
March 26, 2012 at 6:25 pm
When I was in college some magazine company tried to automatically charge things to my bank debit card. Luckily I caught it right away and the bank took care of everything.
It’s funny this has come up, because someone used our credit card sometime in February (over the phone!) to make exorbitant clothing purchases. Considering that the only thing we use the card for is gas, and I used it for one conference fee, I’m a bit peeved that we had to notice it on our credit card statement as opposed to having them actually pick up on the fact that hey, this is outside of a) their normal geographical area and b) their normal spending habits. Especially when there was a second charge rejected right after by whoever the person was to use it at a different call-mail-order place.
The worst part of it all was being passed around to three different departments before they actually got me to the fraud section, and that everywhere it was assumed that we had maybe forgotten that we had dropped 800+ dollars on clothing at a store we never shop at. Terrible, terrible service on that front even though it’s been “resolved,” new cards/numbers and hypervigilance. Good thing I wasn’t already in a bad mood the afternoon I had to deal with that.
Moral of the story: my partner and I watch our accounts like hawks.
March 26, 2012 at 11:22 pm
They paid for it all though right?! I use the Mint iPhone app every morning, just to make sure. Really simple solution :)
March 27, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Oh yes, we aren’t responsible for the charges. But I can’t reiterate enough how much I hated having to repeat to each new incredulous person that no, we had not bought that, and could they actually look at our purchase history to SEE how it didn’t fit. Sigh.
I wish we could figure out how the info got swiped, though.
March 26, 2012 at 7:34 pm
When I was in school, we had a pin number for the phone system that allowed us to make long distance calls. An interesting system because I could make a long distance call from any on campus landline and it would charge my account…but then someone started using my pin to make international calls. Thinking of it now, the whole idea seems dreamlike. Was the person that put in that system naive? Or maybe the world was a smaller and less self-centered (and cell-phone-less) place back then.
March 27, 2012 at 8:07 pm
I hope I’m not a resident of said state.
A few people I know constantly change the credit cards they use strictly for travel.
April 2, 2012 at 1:50 am
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