fraud

[da]

Guess it had to happen eventually. Seems someone snarfed my (PC Financial) credit-card number, apparently just a few days ago.

I got a call last night from their fraud dep't, called them back just now, and we came up with 5 things I didn't authorize. Four were test-transactions of $1, and one was some sort of internet purchase for $38 (ccbill.com).

For a while I thought there was another, a flight on usair, till I realized that I did actually buy that plane ticket a week ago. (in contrast with the /other/ ticket I bought more recently).

Now I'm gonna be suspicious about all of the places I use this card at. (local gas station; grocery store...)

Grump. Grump. What a time-waster. And whoever did it, didn't even do it competently enough to make it really worth their time either; $45 fraud isn't much to speak of.

Comments

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

It's nice to hear about banks doing good things, given how folks usually only swap stories about the bad experiences.

I have distinct activity patterns on my credit accounts to I hope it'd be easy for the robots to find and report on out-of-profile patterns for my usage. In reality, I expect it'd take a fraud-specific pattern like yours to actually catch thieves.

The only class of place I'll let someone take my CC out of my sight is restaurants. Any place else, I'll pay cash if I can't either swipe my card myself (gas stations) or see it being swiped (most shops). I've heard an acquaintance describe her fraud experience a few years ago that was traced back to using a card at the gas station at the corner of Belmont and Glasgow, where the attendant will take your card and return with it.

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

... and I do buy things online, but only with merchants I know (and whose web presence I know) well enough to trust.

[quingawaga.livejournal.com]

gas station at the corner of Belmont and Glasgow

Holy heck! I used my credit card there once, but only because I didn't have cash and it's a pain to use debit at full-serve gas stations. Eep. Was a while ago, though.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Now that's suspicious.

Guess which corner gas station I won't be using any more.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Huh.

What a pain. Sorry to hear about it.