Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 This is some scary shit. Apparently someone bought $160 worth of stuff from Best Buy, $300 from HH Gregg, $50 from some place called "MOBILEFON," donated $4.25 to a charity in Australia, and a bunch of other $0.00 transactions, all on my debit card. At least the scum bag was charitable! I have always thought that I would never get scammed online, but it finally happened, and I feel dumb. Anyways, that leaves me to wonder about your stories. Make me feel like I'm not the only idiot who has gotten scammed/duped/bamboozled. captainaldous 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snaggle Von Swift Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I once had someone try to book a cruise with my debit card. PNC actually called me right after they declined the transaction to ask if it was me. I was happy that they had my back, but also bummed that they knew I was such a loser and never went on vacations. sacredheart and Alice in Chains 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjb2k1 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 are you eating a record? The Saint, trevorxramage and FangsAnalSatan 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan8765 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Your financial institution should refund you for the whole thing. Criminal's aren't dumb. It can really happen to anyone. My girlfriend just had fraudulent activity on her debit card a few weeks ago. About a year ago someone tried using my card info at a Nordstrom in Las Vegas. Try not to worry or beat yourself up about it. hopefully these bastards get what is coming to them, and you get your money returned without issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 But what sucks is the fact that most of these transactions were declined, but I wasn't notified by my bank about them or anything, I just started noticing random shit in my transactions and I had to call them. Yikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 are you eating a record? ... I was hungry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonesomexloveus Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 my college roommate's boyfriend got a call from his bank once asking if he had been out of the country recently, because someone was trying to use his info to buy a bmw in romania or somewhere like that. if i hadn't been there for the phone call i wouldn't have believed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 It can happen for no fault of your own. They are sometimes hacked out of financial systems. The zero dollar charges and the charity donation are probably just "tests" on the card to make sure that is works without throwing the automatic alarm systems that many banks have. Once they are sure it works, then they really start charging the stuff they want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I'd let my bank track my cell phone so that if someone started running the card in a location I wasn't in, they could easily detect it. That is, assuming that there was something in it for me (like an extra cash back percent or something). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 Damn, a BMW in Romania absolutely beats my situation. I found out that I was finally dumb enough to enter my card information on one of those fake websites. I went to buy flowers for my girlfriend from Pro Flowers, but apparently I went to site that was a direct copy of the website and they stole my information and charged $180 worth of "flowers" to my card. I didn't even click accept on the order! $40 for flowers? No way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamalatapes Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 It's not so much that it's scary, but it's more like a hassle because you have to call your card company and tell them you were frauded then they send you paper work etc and the process takes a while. Make sure you're relentless and tell them you're not paying any monthly accrued interest from these purchases. Shinji 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 Your financial institution should refund you for the whole thing. Criminal's aren't dumb. It can really happen to anyone. My girlfriend just had fraudulent activity on her debit card a few weeks ago. About a year ago someone tried using my card info at a Nordstrom in Las Vegas. Try not to worry or beat yourself up about it. hopefully these bastards get what is coming to them, and you get your money returned without issue. Haha absolutely, I just feel dumb because every time I see websites that are obviously scams and/or fakes of the original websites, I laugh and say "How could someone fall for this?" I did, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniquestyle88 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I've had this happen a few times, but almost always the bank calls me and asks me about it shortly after. "Were you at a Target in Iowa this morning?" Worse though is when they flag me when I am actually on vacation (this happened the first two times I went to Montreal). Your card company should help you out. Make sure you call them all the time looking for updates; Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonesomexloveus Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 the two times i've spent $2000+ on a mac, i got a phone call from my credit card company immediately afterwards asking if it really was me making this purchase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 It's not so much that it's scary, but it's more like a hassle because you have to call your card company and tell them you were frauded then they send you paper work etc and the process takes a while. Make sure you're relentless and tell them you're not paying any monthly accrued interest from these purchases. This happened to me once. They sent me paperwork and I just never filled it out. Didn't affect my ability to get the charges removed. Just had to talk to them on the phone for 5 minutes and list what I actually charged. The hassle was updating the card numbers I have saved for online ordering and autopay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinji Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 The hassle was updating the card numbers I have saved for online ordering and autopay. Fuck, you're right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I just recently got my first credit card.I’ve read that banks will take forever to get you your money back if your info has been stolen, whereas credit card companies are usually very prompt. so I’ve been thinking about doing any/all spending I can with the credit card, paying it off, and saving my debit card for places that don’t accept discover.anyone (lebowski) have thoughts on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 lol if you ask... Using the credit card for everything and paying it off promptly 1) builds credit and 2) should be able to get you a percent or two in rewards. This seems small but if you run as many of your purchases through the card as you can, it adds up. I have no idea if credit card companies refund you quicker (in a sense, they aren't really refunding you anything. You haven't paid for it yet). But getting your card stolen should happen infrequently enough that it is really insignificant to which card you use. I think you are doing it right. psus2h 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonesomexloveus Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 however, if you have a balance that is high compared to your line of credit, doesn't that work against you, credit score wise? i pay mine off in full every month, but if i have back to back months with a high balance (prior to paying it off), it seems to make my credit score dip a few points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chamb117 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 depends on your bank or, in my case, credit union. mine called me almost as soon as the purchase happened, and i was able to verify that it wasn't me, and they cancelled the transaction. it makes sense why a bank would take longer to restore your money, though, especially on a point-of-sale purchase with a debit card. the bank has to eat that loss. credit cards basically operate on owed money, so transactions should be easier to cancel. if you are good about paying stuff off, just use your credit card and make the monthly payment. credit cards make all their money on people who can't control themselves and then fail to make payments. make your payments and build your credit. edit: basically what lebowski said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chamb117 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 however, if you have a balance that is high compared to your line of credit, doesn't that work against you, credit score wise? i pay mine off in full every month, but if i have back to back months with a high balance (prior to paying it off), it seems to make my credit score dip a few points. it probably factors in the volatility of your purchases and payments. if you're buying a lot in a month, even if you pay it off it's still going to be "riskier" for the credit card than if you bought less stuff. i'm not a credit analyst, though, but that's what i make of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 The credit score algorithm is a secret but you can reason through why certain things affect it: Length of credit -- longer track record gives them a better sample size to score you Missed payments -- they obviously want the money they loan you back Number of inquiries in your recent history -- they want to make sure you haven't gone out an gotten a ton of credit in a short period of time, which you could use to go on a spending spree and the one mentioned here: The percentage of the credit available you actually use -- viewed as a sign that you live within your means versus spending as much as you possibly are allowed to. I'm not sure they divulge how long running up a high balance carries over into future months scores. If you have credit monitoring service than maybe you could get a feel for it. A couple points here and there doesn't really matter though (as long as you get them back eventually), especially if you have pretty good credit. Someone with a 750 and an 850 score will get offered the same interest rate on their mortgage. Having the 850 just gives you a little breathing room in the event you do miss a payment once. The individual points are much more likely to mean something in the 600ish range (not horrible but not great). That might be way more detail than necessary but the TL;DL version is probably just "take it easy on the card balances before you buy something big (house, car, boat, etc) if you don't have a high score." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
circuit bored records Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I was super bummed when I got declined for a Target card a few years ago (I wanted that damn 20% off!) and they sent me a letter saying my score was like 690. I've had a credit card since I was 18 and only checked one other time and it was 740. I realized I had kept a high balance on the one card I had for way too long. Took some time to pay it down, opened a couple other cards since then and now I'm sitting pretty at a 758. Everyone will say it, but it never loses relevancy, just don't max out your cards and think because you make the minimum payment that you'll be fine. Because you won't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtw88 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Don't feel dumb about having you info stolen. I once had my info stolen on a credit card that I hadn't used anywhere for 4 months preceding the fraudulent charges. I'm not sure if they were just giving me bullshit but I asked multiple people that I talked to at Bank of America, and the best answer I could get as to how it happened was that some thieves use random credit card number generators and mine happened to be a hit on one. I've also had my account frozen multiple times because of suspected fraudulent activity. I'm not sure why I've had so many issues as I use my card less frequently than most everyone I know but the bank has always resolved it fairly quickly and effortlessly so it's not something I worry about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebiglebowski Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Can't remember the title but there is a show on Netflix where a dude follows an identity thief around. It was only one episode. I think the other episodes were prostitution and drug dealing. Nat Geo or Discovery type tv documentary. The kind of stuff I turn on and fall asleep to, given that I don't have cable. Anyways, I think I remember him having a machine that actually let him create credit cards (ie, write to the magnetic strip). He would work with a waitress or something who would swipe the card but to steal the info into a small computer (then actually charge for your food), then he would take that info, write a card, go to best buy, and buy an ipad. It was pretty crazy. He was also REALLY paranoid about getting caught. I guess if anything fishy happens at a store involving a credit card sometimes they will call the police immediately and he's busted for 10 years or something. If you can find it, it wasn't a bad 40 minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.