So my credit card was hijacked last Friday

[magical thyme]

I got a robocall from my credit union fraud alert dept. first thing Friday morning. Had I purchased $137.68 from a dept. store on 1/29? No -- put an immediate freeze on my credit card.

Called up and learned the charge was at jc penney -- nope, have never purchased anything there.

The charge just showed up in my account today, so now I have to file the written dispute form and stop payment.

The charge was to JC Penney.com Kansas. Left me wondering...what triggers the fraud alert? How do they distinguish between stolen charges and legit? Anybody know?

It's left me feeling sick to my stomach. A year or so ago, 30 minutes after I tried to donate a small amount to a charity (in response to a post here in the lounge!) I got one of those robocalls for a much larger amount than the gift. Luckily I didn't have to go through the dispute process, although I did have to replace the card.

Oh, and now my Netflix is turned off, tyvm credit card thief, until my replacement card shows up. THis is such a royal pain in the ass. How did somebody in Kansas get my info?

Oh, and another weird thing. The charge is dated yesterday, 2/1. So how did my credit union get it on Friday, 1/29 if JC Penney didn't send it until yesterday? The whole thing is creeping me out.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. it's happened to us three times in the last five years. no fun at all.

We think for us it's been skimmers on card readers on gas stations - each instance has been a few weeks after a road trip of some sort.

It is a real pain, esp. if some auto pay and web stores have the card number....which you end up finding out as you get emails saying that your card no longer works.

Hang in there....at least they caught it quickly. Our last one - I was at a coffee shop and my card company called and asked why I have a 3000 flight leaving from Chicago later that day.

[magical thyme]

5. I haven't been anywhere...

actually was about to go on a short day trip last Friday when I got the call.

[mackerel]

9. Yeah mine was a skimmer from a gas station during a road trip. They bought a drone.

I check my account everyday. I called my bank and I also googled the drone company and called them too.

[In_The_Wind]

2. It really makes one feel exposed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018831110

Someone hacked my debit card last month. Two weeks later someone attempted to make a purchase for $3,120.44 via e-check using all of the correct information from Mr I_T_W's checking account.

Good luck on getting your finances straightened out quickly.

[magical thyme]

3. jeebus, they hacked Fuddnik's replacement card before it was even used!

[magical thyme]

4. just read through the whole thread...

I'm so sorry!

What a nightmare. Things must be worse than ever for this spate of stealing...

[In_The_Wind]

8. Sometimes life can feel like you're pulling a small train up a hill.

It's the mountains that really test your mettle.

We've got everything under control at the moment. I may need a car repair before the end of this month. I know I'm going to have a large repair bill on the trike before I can put it on the road this year. I truly hope the plant watering job works out.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Strange, something like that just happened to me.

I checked my account on-line yesterday and discovered a number of purchases from stores and restaurants in Denver, all of which occurred on 1/31 and 2/1. I live in Minneapolis and have never set foot in Denver, and my card has always been in my possession. I called my credit union and they immediately froze the card. The guy I talked to said the people who do this sometimes just run through a bunch of numbers until they find real ones, then they make fake cards and use them until the fraud is discovered. The total charges came to about $350, which will be refunded to me in a week or 10 days after they investigate and process the report, and they'll be issuing me a new card with a chip. The nice thing about those cards is that they are almost impossible to counterfeit.

But what a pain in the ass!

[Hoyt]

7. Sorry. Years ago, someone stole a renewed card out of mailbox. Didn't know it until first statement

arrived. It was maxed out, they had gone to bars and furniture stores all over town the first day and charged thousands of dollars. I almost called some of the bars to see if they left a decent tip.

Thank goodness for credit card protection laws, that probably some Democrat got enacted.

[narnian60]

22. Your last sentence:

[Initech]

10. My whole bank account got jacked a couple years ago.

Lost something like $1700. Thankfully the bank put it all back and apologized for the security SNAFU.

[redwitch]

11. My debit card was hijacked last weekend.

My checking account got emptied. Had to wait until Monday AM to go to bank and fill out the fraud forms. Will get a new card n a few days and the money will come back to us too but it's very upsetting. In our case the money stolen went to DeutscheBank. So it was pretty easy to spot. I am now officially paranoid about where I can use a debit card. Been using one for years with no problem.

[magical thyme]

13. ouch!

I've never used a debit card. When my identity was stolen (courtesy of Fidelity Investments and Hewlett-Packard, who lost control of a laptap with all our pension info on it!) I learned that debit card numbers were a major target of the Italian mafia, the Russian mafia and al Qaeda. So I refuse to touch them.

I used to keep a small amount of emergency cash at home. Lately, I've been so close to the bone I haven't had any much extra to keep. I'm going to try to pull a bit of a stash again now that I'm getting back on top of things.

[magical thyme]

14. I'm still wondering how the CU robot knows a good charge from a fraudulent one...

I guess that's a deep, dark secret. They don't want to clue in the thieves...

I'd made a purchase the day before from an internet company I hadn't done biz with before...I'm thinking their security may have been weak.

I think from now on I'll stick to just the really well-established places...

[Fla Dem]

18. I'm sure there's metrics and algorithms that scrutinize our purchasing patterns

When there is an entry that goes outside the standard parameters of your normal patterns, an alert is sent. All done electronically. No human intervention needed.

[Pakhet]

26. Not sure if your CU uses the same strategies as we do, but

I can clear up a few things if you like. I'm a fraud analyst at a bank. There are several things that go into deciding if a transaction is suspicious:
1. is it within your normal geographical variance
2. is it within your normal spending pattern
3. have you ever used that merchant before
4. small charges (testing charges) followed by slightly larger charges (usually at a gas station) and then large charges are a specific pattern we look for
5. do we know that this merchant has a history of fraudulent transactions (usually means the merchant is very lax about security or employee training)

and there are many other things that I'm probably not smart enough to understand that also go into those logarithms.

One thing I actively do to protect my debit card when using an unattended terminal like a gas pump is look for the weights and measures inspection sticker. it's usually on the part of the pump that would have to be opened in order to put a skimmer on that reader. if the pump hasn't been opened and the sticker is intact, it's unlikely that there's a skimming device on that pump. I don't know if they do that in all states, though.

Hope that helps.

[magical thyme]

27. I'm thinking that the "ship to" was the trigger

The more I thought about it, the more that made sense.

They didn't have my physical card, so it most likely was either an online purchase, or call-in for pick-up (although then I think they would have needed the physical card). The ship to would not have been my address.

I don't know if I've ever shopped at JC Penney, definitely not with the last couple decades and never in Kansas, but I do occasionally shop online at different places for specialty items.

Just the day before, I bought a garden cart from a vendor I've never purchased from before and likely never will again (1. because it was a one-time specialty purchase and 2. because I suspect that's where the card hijacking took place).

There weren't any other unusual and zero unaccountable prior purchases. Almost all my shopping tends to be at the same half dozen places. Very simple, low-key life here!

[DebJ]

15. My bank sends an email alert whenever I make a purchase out of state.

I always stop at the same small store on my trips to visit my daughter, and I get an alert every time.

At first, they were freezing my bank card because a purchase had been made out of state...either I had to call
in 'x' hours, or the card was frozen, and since I was on the road when I made the legitimate purchase, I wasn't
checking my email while driving 10 hours. Then I tried to buy a soda, and couldn't, until I called to verify the purchase.

The last few times, I've been sent an alert but no freeze placed on the card.

[mythology]

16. From what I understand

things like random out of state purchases, especially things like if you were at a grocery store in your home state and later that same day your card was used at a grocery store in another state that can trigger an alert.

Alternately if something is radically different in your spending patterns I think it triggers.

I had my card hacked 3 times in 2 years and it was a pain every time. The worst is that while most people notify you via email, my storage locker doesn't. They only notify me when it's 2 months past due and at month 3 they are auctioning your stuff. Granted they've always waived the fees, but it's annoying never the less since they always email me their holiday schedule changes without an issue.

[magical thyme]

17. I used to think that too, but I had just purchased something from a NJ location the day before

and that went through fine. It was a one-time purchase from a vendor I've never purchased from before (and never will again because I'm thinking that must be where the hijacking took place).

Hmmmm....maybe the "ship to" name and address is the clue...

My credit union calls and leaves a message if you don't pick up in time. That's what's happened to me both times it's been hijacked. This time they called last Friday but the charge ended up dated 2/1 and didn't make it into my account until yesterday.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

20. Gas stations will charge you a dollar as an "authorization fee".

I got called for using my card at gas stations. Once I tried to use it 3 times at a gas station and never could get it to work. Then later I had three $1.00 charges on my card for the 3 attempts.

I started using cash for my gas because of this.

[Major Nikon]

19. Much more often than fraud, I get my card cut off by fraud detection

I happened to me again this Monday. I used my debit card in the morning near Fort Worth and then two hours later outside of San Antonio. Evidently they have some kind of algorithm that decides I can't possibly be in those two places in that short of a time so they cut me off because this isn't the first time it's happened.

[mnhtnbb]

21. I opened a statement from Talbot's a couple of weeks ago to discover

someone used the card (still in my possession) at three different stores in NC on the Monday after Christmas. Talbot's Fraud never
contacted me about the charges: I had to contact them! Filled out the paperwork they sent and mailed it back to them immediately.
Apparently, they can take 60-90 days to investigate (I don't have to pay). I told them not to send me a new card. If they can't figure
out charges at three different stores (Asheville, Greensboro, Burlington) in the same day isn't fraud, then I don't want to have to go
through this again.

It's very disturbing to me that, apparently, it is so easy--and so many people are doing it--to hijack someone else's credit card.
Creepy is right.

[magical thyme]

23. I limited myself to a single credit card back after my ID was stolen

Fidelity Investments had a laptop with all our pension info on it stolen from the parking lot of HP's Palo Alto headquarters back in 2006. They insisted it was a "random theft" and that everything was encrypted anyway. But issued all new pins, gave us free credit monitoring for a year, etc.

A few months later, I was contacted by a former colleague now at HP, for potential project work. The same day he acknowledged getting my resume, my Sears card was hijacked by somebody with my SSN. Long story short, he and his wife (the Fidelity VP that 'left' the laptop in her rental car at HP) are part of an identity theft ring operating out of HP. And HP extended the year of free credit monitoring for 3 or 4 more years.

Now I stick to my credit union card. Considering that their customer base (Digital Equipment) ended up with our pensions held at HP, that put all of us at high risk. So they maintain very high security there. Plus we keep at least 1 engineer, if not 2, on the board of directors. I love this credit union. Everything is processed very, very quickly and efficiently.

So I was robocalled probably the instant that charge showed up. 3 days before the JC Penney date on it

[LuckyLib]

24. Before travelling, we call VISA and inform them of where and when we will be

out of state. It costs them money to have operators tracking this information. Too bad. They have no problem charging outrageous interest rates to consumers. They can attempt to protect folks. Also, don't use business credit cards from retailers -- folks get them to get the "discount" or coupons. Not worth it. Use one and only one credit card, one debit card. That way, strange charges are less likely to slip by.

[magical thyme]

25. well thumbs up for time-warner. called them a short while ago...

they removed the charge to make sure I don't get a late charge or bounced credit charge. I can pay the bill as soon as my replacement credit card arrives.

Triple A let me know that there is a 30-day extension, so no late fee or bounced credit fee there either.

Phew!