My First Credit Card Fraud!

boosami · #1 (**permalink**) 10-31-2009, 09:15 AM

Just experienced my first credit card fraud this week! Someone has gotten my Amex charge card number and have used it to buy $600 of electronics, $1,000 of beauty supplies, and an unknown amount for an international calling service (there is a hold on the account but no final charge yet). They were all done by online transactions. Apparently they went as far as to create an email account in my name to make the transactions appear more valid.

I called Amex and they immediately identified all the transactions and removed them, as well as some additional pending transactions I didn't recognize. I haven't cancelled the card yet, because I have so many accounts set up with auto-pay and I have to make sure all payments go through uninterrupted. Surprisingly, Amex was OK with this. They said to keep an eye out for any additional fraud and they would remove it but I am not required to cancel my card and get a new one.

kork13 · #2 (**permalink**) 10-31-2009, 09:25 AM

Sorry to hear that, but at least you caught it quickly... Rather than totally canceling your card, you should be able to simply have AMEX re-issue a card with a new account number. I've had that happen twice before, and my bank just gave me a new number. On my credit report, it shows up as an additional account, but has all of the history from my card prior to the re-issue.

I'd just get a re-issue, call all of the auto-pay recipients, notify them of the new number, and go from there. Normally, when you get a re-issue, the old card number still works for a month or two while you get everything transferred over to the new card (or at least, that's how my bank did it).

Joan.of.the.Arch · #3 (**permalink**) 10-31-2009, 11:57 AM

We've had this happen about six times now. The first time was probably in 1997 or '98. The CC issuers have always been accommodating. The worse thing was most recently when they (Citi MC) wanted us to contact the seller and have the seller cancel the account which the thief had created to make multiple purchases with our credit card number. The seller did not want to close the account because we could not provide the password on it. (Duh?) Well closing that account is moot now, as the CC account has been changed over to a new number. Unfortunately, that is my most used card, so waiting for its replacement we did miss a few days use and maybe a few cents of rewards money. That's not a big deal, obviously. I guess it might have been a big deal if that were my only card and I needed to buy air tickets, rent a car, or buy a houseful of carpet or something.

I do feel concerned that maybe if this keeps happening to us, the CC issuers will cease acknowledging that it was a thief, not us, making the purchases. It has happened on different cards over the years, all of them via internet. We think that our card numbers have just been randomly hit.

Oh, actually I just remembered that one replacement card was missing from the mail just before the fraudulent charges stopped. Fortunately, we had reported it "missing/never arrived" just a few days before the charges began. So this one might not have been just a matter of random number generation.

All in all, I give all our CC companies an B++ for handling it, but American Express gets an A+.

amarowsky · #4 (**permalink**) 11-01-2009, 01:21 PM

Anyone every try one of those Identity Protection companies? I have a friend who has lifelock, but I was wondering if any of you have tried it. I hear it works fairly well.

paymydebt · #5 (**permalink**) 11-02-2009, 12:56 AM

To be on the safe side you should get them to re-issue you a new number. I'm though surprised that they didn't automatically do this since there was fraudulent transactions.

disneysteve · #6 (**permalink**) 11-02-2009, 06:38 AM

We had this happen once about 3 years ago on our Disney Visa. I got the bill and knew something was wrong because we never use this card. Sure enough, there was a single charge to some telemarketer. I called right away and they closed the account and reissued a new card. They sent a fraud alert to the credit bureaus and sent me an affidavit to sign verifying the fraud.

All was fine until today. I got a call 8:00 this morning questioning a suspicious transaction on our Marriott Visa. Turns out it was the same deal as last time, a telemarketer. Again, they immediately canceled the card and are sending a new one. They are also notifying the credit bureaus.

You need to cancel the card and have it reissued immediately.

Caoineag · #7 (**permalink**) 11-02-2009, 07:48 AM

Well, I have never had to sign an affidavit of fraud or had fraud reported on my credit report, but did have 2 different cards cancelled and reissued by the credit card company. Course they also caught both sets before I could (less than 12 hours from charge) so that maybe why. Neither one of them ever let me see what the thieves tried to buy with my cards, they just confirmed one or two items weren't from me and then erased all the other charges as well (wasn't using the cards at that time).