So, I’m a bit anal and was checking the balance on my main checking account this morning when I noticed a $100 pending charge for a company called IDT*SPAWAR PHONE.
I called the bank and they said it was for a pre-paid calling card and to call the vendor. So I did, they did a search by my name and said no accounts were showing as opened - and started a fraud report. I called back the bank and they cancelled my check card - I have to go get a new one on my lunch hour.
I’m just not sure how my card number got compromised. I haven’t made any unusual purchases lately, and when I charge stuff online - it’s usually by paypal, not my account. The only time I’ve charged something out of the ordinary lately was a $25 donation to an American Lung Association and flowers for my bf’s mom for her birthday.
Yet a small part of me felt very un-American, since the calling card was used by military personnel to call home from overseas.
Wow. Well, this is your third “bad thing” since you turned 40, so on the bright side, you’re done now and only good things will happen to you!
I have no idea how cards or accounts are compromised, or if that particular company is a safe and secure one. Good thing you noticed it right away and got everything squared away with your bank, though.
It can be compromised in many ways. I have worked in hotels and twice since 2004 I have caought clerks, one in H/R and one in Accounting harvesting credit card numbers and selling them.
These clerks make $1.00+minimum wage and have access to all your credit info. They gather up cards and then sell them to people.
It’s quite common. H/R has access to old job applications with SS#s. This is why it’s very important to NEVER give your SS# on a job application, until you know they are ready to interview and investigate you. If the company has no intention of following up with your application they don’t need it.
Many banks hire high school kids (over 16) to work as tellers. I know TCF Bank does. It’s easy to find a host of low paid employees with access to thousand of credit card/debit card numbers.
If you’re a smart card-number-stealer, I bet you don’t go using fresh card numbers right away. Too easy for people to figure out what new/different places they’ve used recently. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were more like “we stole this from Applebee’s in March, wait until August to use it.”
And these wee kids are more likely to fat finger a key, placing things on the wrong account. Just yesterday, we got notice that our business credit card was shut down because of non payment. This was surprising, as we had paid the balance in full in the branch.
Turns out, teller kid fat fingered a key and put our $5000 in the wrong account. I then had to spend 3 hours at the bank while they called to get it fixed. Even now, it’s only temporarily fixed- we have to do full paperwork in the coming weeks to right their wrong.
Don’t. At all. Every one of those soldiers gets paid enough to be able to buy some phone cards, and even if there was some incredible set of circumstances in which all their money was going to care for their sick grandmother, there were still other options. Whoever it was had no excuse.
DiosaBellissima, why should you have to spend your time and effort cleaning up the bank’s error? I realize that it’s your account but the bank manager should be doing the lion’s share of the work while apologizing profusely to you!:dubious:
Well, Customer Service over the phone (an Indian call center) told us to just pay our bill and figure it out ourselves. So, I figured I better sit there in the bank to make sue this was correctly fixed. Plus, the branch manager had to keep calling the main bank, but they would only talk to her if I got on the phone to give approval. Hooray. Thanks, Citibank- you treat your business customers right!
Oh, AND it still isn’t fixed. They gave us a temporary credit, but now we need to fill out a bunch of paperwork corporate sends us.
You didn’t have to do anything for your card number to be compromised other than use it even once.
I worked on contract for a few months, and that job was providing check-in and support for the engineers who went into the outlets of an office supply store to bring them up to date with the latest standards issued by the credit card companies for card security. It included things like locked plates over the network ports, so a wandering customer couldn’t connect their laptop to the store network and see what the registers were doing.
My manager told horror stories of other companies who had called in our employer to beef up their network security after someone hacked in and downloaded tens of millions of credit card numbers used in their stores. Another story he told was of visiting gas stations to upgrade the little standalone ATMs and finding in several of them a wireless transmitter that sent out the card number and PIN of every card used on that ATM. Apparently, the store managers didn’t keep track of the key to the back of the ATM.
So, it’s not you, melody, it’s crappy security by retailers, corporations, and joe schmoes behind the counter.