A recent review of my bank statement showed a charge I was unfamiar with, made with my visa check card. I called the company that was listed (an internet match-making site) and after giving them a few biographical details, the woman in their billing department said “Oh, yes, thats a fraudulent charge.” She refunded the money to my card and blocked the card number from any of their sites. She refused, however, to give me any details about the account that was started using my card number. I called my bank and let them know that I was disputing this transaction, and had them cancel my card and put a flag on it. They said they would not even investigate the charge since it was being returned uncontested and they weren’t out any money. I asked if they would tell me if any further charges were attempted against that card, and the service rep said “no.”
So I’m not out anything (except some inconvenience) but I want to know who the hell got my card number and used it in that fashion. It makes a big difference to me if it was some scammer who got the number from a receipt in the trash, or if it was my wife, or my nanny, or the neighbor. Is there any way for me to get this info? I assume the company that runs the website my card was given to knows SOMETHING; can I get them to cough up that info?
IANAL but the only thing I can think of is if you bring some sort of civil suit or possibly criminal charges then have the records of the match-maker subpoenaed. But a civil suit wouldn’t get you too far since you haven’t suffered any monetary damages. You probably wouldn’t get any cooperation from the bank for a criminal case since from their standpoint it’s a business decision to just drop it. And I don’t know what you have to have before you can get a subpoena. I would guess that you can’t simply file a suit to get a subpoena, otherwise everybody would be filing frivolous suits willy-nilly just so they could subpoena their boss’s bank records, their ex-boyfriend’s address book, etc., etc.
Should have asked for the username and password on the account while you were on :). Even the username on the site could probably be viewed without incurring any charges. If it was somone you knew it would probably be pretty obvious unless there was no pic and the stats were very vague.
Well, before you voided the charge, you could have used a trial membership (on many such services) to search by age and area for pictures of your suspects.
The possible good news is that many such services continue to display disabled accounts to create the illusion of a larger “selection”. (I have a friend who once got in trouble with his GF because a long expired account was still showing up as active.) You may still be able to find it.
In addition to the possibility that your wife is “looking for love”, or your nanny is using your card, you should look for unauthorized listing in your name (most internet services get enough fraud that they check that the applicant’s name against the card owner), which could be used to get you in trouble in many ways: make you look unfaithful before a divorce proceeding; declare you as a pervert to your boss or church congregation; or allow a con man to swindle “lonely hearts” using your identity.
Since “damage” may have been done before you saw the charge, I’d consider your query more than just idle curiosity. You may be able to squeeze a few more details (e.g. gender, age, region) out of the matching service by positing one of these scenarios. In a divorce, for example, the possiblt monetary loss could be substantial (Of course, if it’s your wife, they won’t tell you a thing, lest she sue as a “legitimate client”)
Sorry I can’t offer more concrete help, but I encourage you in your quest.
Now THERE’S a thought that scared the shit outta me for a few minutes. But realistically if it were my wife trying to frame me she’d have enough personal info about me to make it not so obvious that there was fraud involved.
There is a good chance that the match site wasn’t the only thing charged on your account. If the criminal ordered from a catalogue and had the delivery sent to his house instead of yours, you pretty much got him nailed. When my wife had a credit card receipt “found” in a field next to a landscaping company that she purchased from, the “finder” started ordering from a whole bunch of sites and sent the merchandise to his apartment. When VISA called me up one night and told me about these suspicious charges, I went ahead and asked for the companies and phone numbers that were on the charges. Then I called those companies and asked (as the legal cardholder) which address those are being shipped to, I had all 8 companies tell me the same address (of the criminal’s apartment). Turned that info over to the cops who made the arrest the next day, with some of the merchandise ordered already delivered and sitting in boxes (with my wife’s name on them) in the perp’s apartment…indisputable evidence. That was 10 years ago, but I’m pretty sure that as a cardholder, you can call and still get all that info. Hopefully, your crook will make that mistake outside of cyberspace.
I once lost my wallet in a matter of 1/2 hour the guy charged 2,000 dollars. He charged on the internet, my health club, at the grocery store, he bought movie tickets.
I alerted my credit card company and after I filed a police report they wrote off the $2,000 but when I asked the cops if they’d go after him, after all they had video tape they could check, the Chicago Police told me it was “petty” stuff and they don’t bother that. When I was a little insistant he told me I got my money back so why should I care? It should’ve been easy to catch him as he I lost it in the health club and there were only like 5 other people in it at the time as the club was closing and the front desk is videotaped.
Of course on my next credit card bill Citibank raised my interest rate from 4.9% to 21%. So I cancelled the card.