Posted: 10/16/2008 4:29:20 AM EDT
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For the 5th time in 2 months, one of my Wife's credit cards has had $1500 + of fraudulent charges run up on it. From Her conversations with other people in her office, she is not the only person there that is having this problem. In all the cases the charges are about evenly spread out among gas stations, retail stores, and restaurants all over Southern Florida. At first we were suspecting either on-line purchases made from her office PC or a crooked employee at one of the restaurants where she orders lunch from, but the card that got hit most recently (we discovered the unauthorized usage this morning) has NEVER been used for an on-line purchase from either home OR work and has never been used to order lunch. What boggles my mind is that in all cases (both with her cards and her fellow employees that have had this problem) is that they physically still have the card. I think someone in Her office is going into purses/wallets and writing down names and CC numbers then putting the cards back in place, but how is it possible to use a stolen card number in a retail establishment without physically having the card in your possession, ESPACALLY when the name on the card doesn't match the user? Is this someone who is sophisticated enough that the are making cards with their name and my wife's numbers, or can you just walk into some retail establishments and give CC numbers to complete your transaction? Do we have any members that work for a CC fraud department that can shed some light on this for me? In all of our cases, the $ has been deducted from our balance, but it is getting very tiresome checking all of her cards twice a week for any fraudulent usage. I've gone as far as to let upper management in her company know that I would be willing to go into their offices and set up a few hidden cameras at my expense over a weekend to try and catch whoever is doing this  |
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CC company says that the scum can manufacture coded physical cards easy as pie. I can see your concern, as multiple people have been hit there... but thieves just don't prey in one spot like that. Now it is possible that one of the local gas stations they all use is crooked, but who knows. My guess is that it's coincidence. This is a VERY COMMON problem, and the CC companies feel it costs less to just write off the losses, than it would cost to investigate and prosecute them... so the scumbags are having a full on fucking field day. Theres really no threat to them at all, apparently.  ETA, to be clear about this... I've had two cards compromised. Neither of the cards left the house. One card was used to withdraw $2000 from an ATM machine in California. I live in NY. Never been to cali, and neither has my card. |
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Have had my ID stolen I can comment on a few things. Most restaurants/pizza places, etc. do not check to see who's name is on the card when you use it. A recent example: Relative visited and offered to buy pizza for dinner. I went and picked it up with relatives CC and they had no cares about who used it, the fact that a woman's name was on it, or that my signature was obviously not the one on the car. Someone on here, maybe AR15fan posted or talked about some of the ways CC numbers are stolen at restaurants but it doesn't sound like that is the case. You obviously know to contact the CC company. I would also be checking my credit report and my wife's to see if there is more there than there should be. Simply cancel existing cards, take new cards, never bring them to work, see what happens. |
Yup I had my debit card used for a bunch of small online purchases . The bank just writes them off. They do no investigate at all. It's pretty safe to make a living these days by committing CC fraud. |
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CC theft is everywhere but a LOT of recent activity has been in FL. Thieves get the mag stripe information through various schemes but some of the most common are data thefts of compromised data (remember the TJ Maxx thing?). Once this information is obtained, it is sold on the internet as easy as selling something on ebay. Bad guys take the information and manufacture their own plastics. Take a fake plastic along with a fake photo ID and you're in business. One place to look for is any ATMs that are commonly used by people in her office. ATMs are getting compromised by putting skimming equipment on them. When anyone uses an ATM, be sure to look closely at the facia components of it. If anything looks out of place or just weird, report it to the bank and don't use it. One piece of advice I give is that if you have checking accounts with significant balances it them, I would open up another account to use as your transaction account and only keep enough money in it to cover your spending needs. That way, if your account is compromised (not just your debit card), your funds exposure is limited. Sure, Reg DD, and Visa/MasterCard operating rules, require the bank to refund your losses while the issue is resolved, it is still a major hassle for the cardholder. |
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May credit card frauds are commited by people at the CC company. I haerd an interview a while back and the interviewee stated many CC companies hire people to do billing with out a background check. I have had my company credit card number stolen as well as 12 other people in the office. The charges have been in california at grocerie stores and gas stations. |
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Cards get stolen from CC processors and from the machines at stores. Theres a computer somewhere in the store that the transactions run through. These sometimes aren't secured too well or its easy to slip malicious equipment into their network. If they have wifi then that just makes it easier. Placing a device about the size of a deck of cards would be more than enough. Store computer kiosks (photo processing, job apps, etc) offer more than enough room and a network connection to complete this. -Foxxz |
| I've had problems before with CC fraud in MIA. 3-4 years ago I had my AMEX card number stolen 3 times in a month. I always watch my accounts and they would steal the number in the AM in Mia and use the number in Tampa at 4:00 at a truckstop to buy $75.00 in gas. I finally figured it out when I was talking with one of my clients in MIA. He was having the same problem. We compared were we used our cards and the only place in common was a cuban restaurant on Lejeune. Quit going there and had no more CC fraud. |
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Skimming is more likely than writing down the number. They skim the card and then make a "white card" Also you'd be amazed at that where fraudsters are putting skimming machines. I have worked cases where the bad guys put a whole fake front on a gas pump and when you dipped your card for gas it registered the card with the pump and then took your CC track info. Sad fact as well as many insiders are at credit card processor companies. Hackers are getting in to more and more banks. I worked a case in which NewsWeek did an article on me where we caught two hackers from the Ukraine and they had gotten in to the system at two banks and were able to create accounts internally. It really is scary out there and it is big business. This is why I go all over the world helping to train high tech task forces, lobbying to get laws changed in countries like Romania and the Ukraine. Does your wife and the others access their accounts online from work? Does she use the same password for all of her accounts? Some of her accounts? The more we use our PCs and cell hpones the more vulnerable we are and there are substantial monetary motives for developing technology to rip folks off. If people want I'd be happy to come up with a document that tells folks how to protect themselves and you can then share it with family and friends. Let me know. I track these assholes every day all day globally.. |
Yep one of the things our company does is use your cell phone. we are working on technology that will allow you to use your cell to pay for stuff instead of a credit card. We have two of the biggest players in the world in this area backing our development. Even if you were to lose your cell they wouldn't be able to use it to pay due to the MFA rules we are applying. CC companies have no real motive to use the tools at their disposal to stop this stuff. They have loss numbers in the 12-13 basis point range. It costs them more to fix the problem than continue the way things are. There are things out there that could drastically reduce fraud but they are expensive and there aren't enough people complaining to MC and Visa. I was at a conference 4 yrs ago where one of the big two revealed a technology to us that would basically wipe out CC fraud if used at a POS. Costs more to implement it than to let it go 
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Did you report that to authorities or your CC issuer? These problems don't just magically go away. Folks need to raise hell.. |
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At least some companies are taking preemptive measures. BOA just sent me a letter saying they were sending me a new CC with a different number because they believed mine was among thousands that had been compromised. I've never had any fraudulent use of this particular card (although my BOA debit card number was stolen and used in other states). |
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Hi guys this is Mrs. Echo6 The other employees and I have compared notes and it seems that the only link is that we all work at the same place :( We have all reported the problem to our CC companies and will now be filing police reports as well. Not sure if they will be able to do anything but we can hope. I compiled a spread sheet for them listing all the charges on the various cards of mine that were used along with store numbers for the charges that the info was available. On this latest incident most of the charges were in Hialeah... 7-11, gas stations, Home Depot etc... I am just REALLY hoping its not someone at my office doing this. In all the situations we all still retained physical possession of our cards. Could someone have a portable device that would scan the cards? regards, Mrs. Echo 6 |
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Yes. There are several very small devices that can scan a car. Most can be palmed easily. About half the size of a small cell phone. Holds several thousand cards worth of info. But based on other articals I have read, it seems very unlikely someone in an office would do that. They don't sell for that much money. Not worth the risk for "stealing" 10 cards. |