Checked my credit card account online this morning and there was about $500 in unauthorized charges pending. I’ve already cancelled the card and had the charges reversed but I don’t understand the scam. There was a Zappos (shoe store) charge, Napster charge, three Fedex charges for $10 each, and four charges from Craigslist for $50 a pop. What do you buy through Craigslist that would result in a charge? Is there a way to scam cash? If I try to Google Craiglist and scam, I just get lots of info on Nigerian scammers…
These sound like unusual items for a credit card thief. Doesn’t sound like they’re trying to generate cash. Craigslist sells ads to business, like employment ads for $25 a category, so that could explain $50 charges.
Yeah, it was kinda weird. I had a debit card compromised before and the charges were for online servies that were obviously a way to test the card validity (i.e. porno sites). The Zappos order sounded like a real amount and I couldn’t imagine what the Fedex and Craiglist ones were for. It seems weird to be advertising employment ads with a stolen credit card number but maybe those were scam ads? Like send them money and get info on a stay-at-home business?
Don’t overestimate the skill and subtlety of credit card scammers. I had my debit card stolen a while ago, and a bunch of mysterious charges went through before my bank caught it. I tracked down the charges eventually, and they were all for porn. Turns out it was just some stupid kid, who thought he could get away with buying shit with other people’s money.
Not all fraud is done by a shady Russian cabal with with vast, secret methods of money laundering.
How’d you figure out who it was? Did the bank tell you? I asked the fraud specialist and she said they do go after all fraud, even small amounts like the charges on my card. I wish I’d asked her is they used my CCV number (the three digits on the back) which would give me some hint. I still have the card in my wallet so it was probably an online issues.
BTW, the Bank of America rep did tell me about their “shopsafe” program that will generate a one-time use credit card number linked to your account for online purchases. That’s a neat idea I will probably use in the future.
When I worked for Amazon, it was a bitch to troubleshoot these accounts. Because the CC number changed, they couldn’t verify security with the card they had. I really hope they (Amazon) found a way to fix that because those calls were a pain for all involved.