stolen credit card number - how didthis happen?

[Anonymous]

i got a call on saturday that our credit card number had concerning charges - 4 to be exact - one liquor store, one gas station purchase, one 7-11 purchase and one other one - 2 of those had been refused, as per the company,

they also saw that i went to giant that day.

they were calling to verify that it was me at giant and to see if the otehr charges were me or not...

ome - how did someone get my number? or an actual card made??

2) how come the card got refused at 2 of the 4 fradulent attempts?

and

3) how did the credit card company figure it out???

i am impressed that they caught this - all the attempted purchases were local, so its not that there were 4 from alabama or anything....

[Anonymous]

Similar thing happened to me a few years' back. My cc was used at a Target in California to buy over $1,000 worth of stuff...only, the card never left my wallet.
actually, it wasn't similar, because my CU never called to confirm it was legit. I, too, had used the card the same day in DC.

Anyway, I think numbers can easily be stolen either through an online transaction, or something as simple as someone veering at your card as you pass it to a cashier at a store. I always cover my card so others cannot see it, and be careful to return receipts at restaurants to the waiter so it isn't left on the table.
Just be glad your bank is with it enough to have a fraud lookout on your account!

[Anonymous]

I have no idea how this happens -- I once had my card used at a foot locker and a food court in Indianapolis. I have never been to Indianapolis. Crazy.

[Anonymous]

Internet shopping. Or a retailer/restaurant that you used had some sort of breach.

That is what my cc company told me when it happened a few year ago.

[Anonymous]

Do you have it now or did you drop it somewhere? The card can be scanned with a hand held device. So, if the card is out of your sight, it can be copied very quickly. The credit card companies runs programs that calculate the probabilities of each transaction charged to your card fitting your user profile. If there are charges that do not fit your profile, it is flagged. Then other programs or the same program look at the time intervals b/w charges, if these fit your profile, do these charges have a pattern that look like fraud etc.

[Anonymous]

OP, had you eaten at a restaurant? Sometimes a bad employee will "skim" credit card numbers then later use the numbers at Giant or to get gas. See here - http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/credit-card-skimming-scam-olive-garden

[TheManWithAUsername]

There are also attachments that can be placed on scanners by particularly industrious thieves. I'm surprised that it doesn't happen more often, and never has to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, had you eaten at a restaurant? Sometimes a bad employee will "skim" credit card numbers then later use the numbers at Giant or to get gas. See here - http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/credit-card-skimming-scam-olive-garden

This. And the ATM skimmer thingy.

[Anonymous]

op here: dh and i racked our brains on where we'd been recently, but in every instance, the card never left either of our lines of vision (i went to starbucks, watched them swipe the card, had it handed back to me, etc), and we never use that card for withdrawals, but i did make a few internet purchases - potterybarnkids and diapers.com... i still don't really understand how it could get stolen from there using our house's Ip address or my work's secure address...

mu husband has an automatic bill pay with his parking company (so they have the # on file) and the invoice arrived the day before the card was stolen, so he suspected someone at the company took the number from there...

[Anonymous]

this happened to me the day after I went to Cafe Divan in G'town. The manager never responded, but I knew it was them because there was both the regular dining charge and a separate 3.00 charge that showed up, then very soon a bunch of random charges, all for online shopping stuff.

[Anonymous]

It's likely that the thieves purchased the credit card number online -- there are exchanges for this purpose -- and then just cloned the card. The actual theft of your CC number could have happened months or years ago. It could have been in a retail/restaurant, but it's also possible that someone hacked into a third party database and downloaded a ton of numbers, including yours. You're never going to find out so don't waste your time retracing your steps.

The important thing is that it was caught quickly. Obviously, the bank needs to re-issue a new card with a new number. You should also start monitoring your credit reports annually. (Everyone should do this.) The most expensive ID theft situations are those where it goes on for months before people figure it out. Usually that's the type of situation where people take out new cards using your name and credit rating, but still. Can't be too careful. Monitoring your credit profile should be like your annual physical. Just do it once a year to make sure things are normal.

[Anonymous]

Skimmers are usually the culprit. We had several charges using DH's check card number up in New York. This was after we used the card at a restaurant in Baltimore. So I figure someone there had a skimmer. Luckily, I log into my bank account on a regular basis and caught it the next day before the charges had even cleared.

[Anonymous]

with me, they got the number somewhere & manufacture a fake card which was then used for cash withdrawls.

the second time, it was wal mart purchases 4 states away

once the CU stopped my card bc i purchased 1 song on itune, which can be a test balloon to see if ou get away with it. then i went to the gas station and the card had a hold on it. both purchases were my actual purchases, annoying, but i was glad they were keeping track.

[Anonymous]

Also, watch how you stand and wait to pay and how you hold your card. If you tend to pull your card out your wallet and hold it while you order and pay, turn your card over face down in your hand. If your card is face up, anyone with a cell phone camera can take a picture of it.

[Anonymous]

The charges were local and for small amounts? That tells us that the card number was stolen at some retail location. It was probably being used by the guy who swiped the number, or one of his friends.

If your number was stolen out of some company's computer or by malware, you would have seen a number of large charges appear, all internet purchases.

As for why the card company caught it, they might have flagged the type of charge (say you have never used it at a gas station) or the card may not have had a valid CVV, or perhaps they had the number but not the magnetic stripe, the cardholder name was misspelled, or the expiration date was wrong. Any of those could flag it. So any combination of missing security features or a pattern that is out of line with your typical behavior will often cause this.