Credit Cards Hacked - Again!

Started by MiniDave, December 29, 2017, 10:41:55 AM

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MiniDave

A couple of weeks ago it was my "Car Account" card, all sorts of things were bought - two different Netflix accounts, stuff off of Amazon and so on. They always try a small purchase first to see if it will go thru, if it does they hammer the card for everything they can till it quits working. The bank refunded everything they spent which was close to $1000.00 and said they would follow up by checking to see if the names the goods were purchased in live at the address the goods were sent to and so on. I doubt anything will happen to whoever did it tho. The thing that annoys me is that I only use that card to buy car stuff, and only at a few places, so where in the Sam Hill did they get the numbers? I don't use it for gas or food purchases, the two most common sources.....

A couple of days ago it was my wife's card and a completely different account....and this time it was a Paypal purchase....I thought the whole point of these "chipped" cards and using Paypal was that it couldn't be hacked?

The bank shut the card off and they only made one purchase of $113 so once we're reimbursed the only downsides are having to wait for another replacement card and then having to change all our online accounts to reflect the new numbers.

But..........it's annoying as hell and again I wonder how they got the numbers? When you do a phone or online purchase they ask for the little 3 digit code on the back which is supposed to also keep the card safe, so I asked the rep from the bank how they were making these purchases without that code ? (all the fraud purchases were done online) She said the skimmers they use now have cameras embedded so as the card is inserted not only does it read the encrypted info, it takes a pic of the back of the card!

Also, it could have been a server at a restaurant, all they have to do when they walk your card back to charge the meal is zip out their phone and take a pic.......

So, whadya do to protect yourself? Be aware of skimmers at self serve places like bank ATMs, gas station pumps and so on, but I don't know what else you can do, there will always be thieves I guess, and as long as the bank stands behind the card I'm OK, but of course the costs of the fraud are always passed along to the customer somehow.
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

BruceK

This won't correct the problem, but it can let you know about unauthorized charges sooner and perhaps deal with them at the start: if you don't have it already, get the app(s) from the various credit card companies and install them on your smartphone.  In just a matter of seconds you can log on to your account (even quicker if you use the fingerprint scanner to gain access) and see your current balance - up to the minute - as well as a listing of all the transactions on the card.   Some credit cards allow you to instantly freeze your account from their app. 
1988 Austin Mini
2002 MINI Cooper S
1992 Toyota LiteAce (JDM)
1997 Jeep Wrangler Sahara

MiniDave

#2
Both our cards are drawn on the same bank, and we pretty much check it everyday since the first time they got to us a while ago on my main card (not the car account), plus our bank is pretty good at stopping it if it looks wrong to them.....they cut off the car account right away and denied about 15  purchases, but they did get thru some - the stuff they got was women's clothing from some trendy boutique in LA!

Short of getting a ping every time something is charged on the card, I don't know what else we could have done.

I try not to have any financial info on my phone, it seems pretty vulnerable to me.

Thanks for the info tho!

Dave
Complete failure at retirement

1989 Cooper Racing Green
2009 Clubman S
2014 Audi Allroad

jeff10049

Databases get hacked all the time even the credit card companies are not immune. Capitol one told me It doesn't matter how or where you use your card your chances are about the same as the next guy just try to avoid the obvious like unsecured online checkouts and to never email your info.

I get a laugh out of the folks that are overprotective of there info they make their life harder by refusing to buy online or over the phone and seem to get hacked as much or more than the rest of us. I have customers that have to watch every second of the transaction and see the printouts don't have there info it's a pain in the ass and they really do have more issues than anybody when you listen to them complain about the 35 times there info has been stolen.

I have a "discover it" card that at the time had never been out of my desk drawer or made a single purchase get used in Florida! Discover called to see how my vacation was going lol when I said I was in Oregon they cut the card off and refunded the money. Strangely  I did not need to get a new card.

Had my us bank debit info used once for a few small items and also did not need a new card or pin# after I called in the charges they refunded me and that was it I'm not sure how they determine the severity of each case and whether a new number is needed but I was glad I didn't have to go update all the info.
Never had another problem on either of those cards.