Credit card scam?

Factual Questions
1

Could the following information be related to some sort of credit card scam. I can’t think of how, but here it is.

Last month there was a temporary charge on our credit card for $1.00 from Sleepys xz. It later disappeared and there was never an actual charge. I figured it was a mistake.

This month there is a temporary charge for $5.00 on our credit card from Sleepys xz.

I understand that the low and even dollar amounts are related to a temporary charge, and that if posted would become a greater and exact dollar amount.

I called Bank of America to dispute this claim, since I have never been in or ordered from a Sleepys store. BAC tells me that the charge is from Norwalk, CT, but since it is only a temporary charge I can’t dispute it yet. The suggested I call Sleepys corporate offices to complain, which I did, but was told that my best course of action would be to wait to see if it becomes a real charge and then dispute it. That is fine, but two months in a row is one too much. It occurs to me that this may have been happening monthly for a greater time, but since it hadn’t resulted in a real charge, I never noticed it. I was just a coincidence that I did last time, Not so much this time since I have been checking on line every once in a while.

Anyway, under what circumstances could anyone benefit from this activity? Since the charge goes away no money is being given to anyone (at least from my account) but too months in a row is once too much for an honest mistake.

2

Someone with your credit card number could be testing the card to see if the charge goes through, thereby verifying that the card is valid.

I’d call your card issuer *immediately *and ask them to send you a new card with a different number.

3

I agree with robby. It’s easy to test a card that way.

4

That happened to me a couple of years ago, with 50 cent charges. My Barnes & Noble CC bank, Chase, noticed it and called me. It was when B&N accounts were being stolen by non-secure transactions being captured. They had to cancel and replace thousands of cards.

5

Since it happened twice, I wonder if the culprit, in addition to verifying the validity of your account, is also seeing how careful you are about checking your CC bills? Doing it once they might hit someone that is extremely careful, goes WTF! and cancels their card; then their test would fail the second time.

6

I ordinarily would check my account on line every few days or so. One day my account was $0, with some inroad into my overdraft protection, after someone charged thousands of bucks worth of something from Yves St Lauren and some computer equipment joint. It took a week to straighten everything out, and in the process I did notice that there had been a $1 charge to US Olympic training center or some such thing two days in a row. I expect that those were the under the radar test charges. I check daily now.

7