Credit Card Fraud Alert- Watch For Small Charges

[Beaglemom3]

Just an FYI here.

I received a fraud alert email notice and a phone call from CitiBank's fraud protection services.

Had a $0.37 charge from Ourocard in Brazil.

This is how it starts, apparently, with small charges to see if anyone notices. The big-ticket items come next.

Haven't been to Brazil and haven't ordered anything with this card in a long time.

CitiBank has cancelled the card and is sending me a new one.


Check your activity online at this time of year. Many scammers are hoping that these little charges will get lost in the Christmas and vacation type usage charges on your statement.



Two paws up for CitiBank.


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[camachinist]

I've been experimenting with Chase's immediate alerts for card not present transactions and it works pretty good. Make an online purchase, like from Amazon, and the alert from Chase via e-mail often arrives before the order confirmation from Amazon does, usually within a minute.

The same happens with phone. Recently, when buying a new smartphone on Verizon's site, Chase's system declined the purchase, sent me a fraud alert along with a card not present alert. I had to manually approve the purchase and then call Verizon to re-run the transaction. I guess there's a lot of that kind of fraud too.

Swipe the card to pay for fuel at the gas station, no alert. I also have alerts for any larger transaction, set currently at 500.00, no matter what the card situation is.

Thanks for the heads up! I've got two cards with Citi and will check into their system and scrutinize all statements closely.

 

[artringwald]

Three times over several years I've had charges less than $30 posted to my account. In all 3 cases, the name was something generic. If I had waited until the statement end of the month, I may not have realized that I didn't make those charges. That's why I use Quicken to download credit card activity automatically every day. When suspicious charges have shown up, after checking with DW, I've been able to call and get them reversed. They usually send cards with new numbers.

 

[LUVourMarriotts]

Credit card fraud has been pretty annoying for us over the last few months. We have had our Chase Disney and Chase Marriott cards both stolen, and also our Discover card. When I say annoying, I mean having to go to all of the auto-pay places and change the info. I'm happy that Chase and Discover catch this very quickly.

Our most recent was just last month, and it was also a very small charge, under 50 cents, at a online grocer in Canada. Then 3 very quick Starbucks purchases at 3 different Starbucks in Canada. The grocer and the first Starbucks went through, then the other 2 Starbucks and all other attempts, including my own, were declined.

When I called the fraud department to figure it out, they told me that the new scam is for people to use software to randomly generate card numbers and run sample purchases until they find one that works (those very small purchases) and then they try to use it from there. In my situation above, the Starbucks purchases were for significant sized gift cards, and they were card swipes. So they are generating fake cards once they have an account number that works.

These people should just get jobs.

 

[Luanne]

I always check my credit card (and my bank) activity daily.

But, the fraud attempt I had was caught by Chase. I got a text, and a call, from Chase while we were in Las Vegas. They had detected a small charge attempt. When I said I hadn't made the charge they immediately shut down my card and issued me a new one. Since I was on vacation I might not have caught this charge myself for a few days.

 

[Ken555]

Similarly, if you have American Express and an iPhone (or iPod Touch) you may use Passbook to automatically display every charge on your credit card on your phone moments after it occurs. I've used this for a couple years now and it's fantastic. I wish Chase and others used this capability for alerts, though I also receive emails from Chase for all internet charges and those over a certain amount.

http://amexpassbook.com


Sent from my iPad

 

[Pat H]

2 days ago I noticed $1.99 charge on my AMEX for Google Checkout dated 1/1/15. I called AMEX and it was for an app. Definitely not mine. There was also a pending charge for $5.29 that did not post also for Google.

A week ago I found a charge on a Chase card for $61 from Amazon. Not mine and this card is very seldom used.

The AMEX has a lot of auto charges that I will now have to change. What a pain.

At first I thought the AMEX might have been compromised during my trip to China but I didn't use that card while on my trip. Can't blame China for this one.

 

[cmdmfr]

Chase Credit Card

I use my Chase card and so far by putting alerts on my card it has paid off. I found a $99.00 charge from Amazon that I did not use. I called Amazon and long and be hold it was something I checked on when I was do a price match. I called Amazon and they did refund it with no problem. But by the alert and reviewing my crd pid off.