Three years ago I switched from mastercard to visa. At that time I let my mastercard expire and shredded the card. A few days ago I got a call from mastercard telling me that there was a charge of $1866 on my mastercard. I stated that it had expired 3 years ago and was told that someone had activated the card recently. I managed to track down the company that accepted the card and was told that the were given the card number over the phone and also by e-mail. The sale was fo spark plugs for some place in Neigera. I told them that they would not be able to collect as it was a fraud deal. The company did manage to stop shipment. In order to activate a credit account you have to call from you home phone, give the card number (I had no card so no number) Your name and address and also mother’s madien name. How in the world did somebody in Africa have access to that information. I told the credit card company that the info must have come from within their organization. Any ideas?
Someone may have been watching you for a while to collect all that info. You probably want to call the Big 3 credit reporting agancies and put a fraud watch on your accounts.
And make sure you call the issuer and actually cancel/close the account (instead of just trusting the expiration to “stick”).
There have been a few high-profile personal information thefts in recent weeks, namely from Bank of America, Lexis/Nexis and some other company that I can’t recall. I remember reading that Nigeria was invovled in at least one of the thefts, so your trouble may be related to these.
ChoicePoint was the other one I was thinking of.
Here’s a link to a CBS story on the identity thefts of over 32000 people
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/10/tech/main679237.shtml
Kat, you are right. At the time (3 years ago) I did not know that I had to call the credit card company to close out my account. I thought that after the card expired that the account was closed. “WRONG.” Now I’m having a hell of a time trying to clear the charges on the account. I received the bill for the sum of $1866 and the company was supposed to send an affidavit for me to fill out and return with the bill. Still waiting for the affidavit. Called the co. and they told me that three of them have been sent. The first one was mailed on the 8th of March. It is now the 19th and still no affidavit. It sure does not take 11 days to receive a letter, no matter where it was sent from.
I presume you’ve confirmed that they have your address correct? The perp may have had it changed.
flex727 is probably on the right track. Scammers frequently change your address of record with the CC issuers.
Regarding the affidavit issue, you have 60 days from the date that you received the paper bill showing the fraudulent charges to file a dispute with the CC issuing bank. If you fail to do so, you lose certain important rights under federal law.
I advise you to immediately write a short letter to the bank indicating which line item on their invoice to you that you believe is fraudulent. Send this letter via certified, return receipt requested US mail to the correspondence address found on your credit card bill.
By doing so you preserve your rights under federal law. Keep your US mail “proof of sending” form for this letter.
They may wish that you fill out bank-specific affidavit forms. Feel free to do so as it will likely speed up the resolution of this issue, however, you should NOT neglect to get something in the mail ASAP to protect your rights.
I believe the applicable federal law may be found here:
http://www.bankersonline.com/regs/205/205.html