Fraud??

Has anyone here received any unauthorized charges an their CC after using it to renew membership?

Not accusing. Just curious.

This message was edited Mar 29, 2010 9:14 PM

Nope. no problems here.

No problems renewing my subscription with DG, but we've had one of our credit cards compromised three times the past two years ... very frustrating as we have to dispute it with the CC company, then they have to issue us a new card, transfer any balance, we have to destroy the old card and then fill out paperwork regarding the dispute and send it back. This is a CC we've had since the early 1980's and it just began happening about two years ago. First charge was for over $700 worth of tickets to see some show in Vegas! We've never been to Vegas and had never heard of the act/person. The next time it happened, the charge was for @ $80.00 for some on-line music cd's or something and the third time was for over $100 for something, can't remember what. The CC Company has a fraud division and I certainly hope they were able to track down whoever the culprit (s) were! I guess they thought it was happening when we made on-line purchases so now when we buy anything on-line we call the CC Co. first and they give us a dummy/pseudonumber to use for purchases. It still gets charged to our account but the true number isn't revealed on-line. So far, so good!

I'd be extremely surprised if it was due to your transaction here. Like most online companies, the credit card process we use is secured and encrypted to ensure the data cannot be intercepted by any outsider.

We don't keep your credit card information on file year-after-year like some sites do (I love the convenience of shopping at Amazon, but it does worry me sometimes that my credit card information is stored with them.)

We've never been hacked, but we don't want to have that sort of information stored in our system on the off-chance that our security was ever compromised.

I totally trust renewing my DG subscription using my credit card. I believe fraud happens most often at the local level, restaurants and mall stores. We stopped using our CC at restaurants a few years ago because of reading about fraud happening when the server took your card to scan for payment. Some unscrupulous characters had some sort of scanner they would use at their station/register and get your info before returning your card and receipt. It was even on our news yesterday about a restaurant in a county south of us where many folks who had used their credit cards had that same thing happening. We pay with cash when we eat out nowadays. It was even on the news this morning at a Bank of America about a mile from me, cameras got photo's of a man on Sunday putting a sign on the drive up teller saying it was out of order and to use the one at the other side of the bank ... photo's showed him installing some sort of scanning device to get personal account numbers etc. when someone withdrew from the ATM!! I sure hope they catch the guy.

We don't shop on line very often but my husband does use the CC on line to purchase supplies for his salt water aquarium and sometimes to purchase computer supplies. The compromise of our card has only happened with one particular card and we're sure it was with on-line shopping, we know it was not when I renewed my DG subscription.

we shop A LOT on line.

I think we were only "compromised" once... it was a small $3-4 charge on Christmas Day... that is how we caught it.. we weren't on line that day. [they felt the con-person was just testing the number to see if it goes thru... then makes huge purchases.]

Twice our CC company felt "they" were compromised and issued us new cards.... so that made 3 times in 2-3 yrs we got new numbers... a "pita" but better to be safe than sorry. Now our CC company shuts down our purchases if THEY feel something is up. Happened 4 times since Nov, 3 of those times we were on vacation... real PITA. But hopefully it's stopped now since DH read them the riot act.

My son was compromised once... they bought BR furniture.
Not in any of the cases did we 'have a fight on our hands' -- pretty easily cleaned up.

We are just very diligent in checking our account on line - probably do it every other day... so we'd catch anything out of the ordinary pretty quickly.

We now check our accounts on a regular basis. It's such a shame that there are unscrupulous sorts out there just waiting to steal from others. My friends daughter and son in law had their credit card compromised a few years ago ... someone using it for on-line gambling at the tune of over $1,000.

Our CC Company will call us if an unusually high charge is being made. My husband teaches in the Aviation field and many years ago he would take students from a club on campus to Georgia to tour airport facilities. He would put the hotel charges on our CC and the student club would reimburse him. I answered the phone one day and it was our CC company asking me if someone was authorized to charge $$ at an Atlanta hotel. I told them yes that it was my husband, so they okayed the charges. I thought it was great that they called about it when they saw the large charge.

plantlady... our's does the same. It is nice knowing they are watching out.

Discover is really good about fraud--I've had my card # stolen twice and both times they caught it before I did. One time it wasn't even large charges and it was at a place I've shopped before (iTunes) so I'm not sure how they knew it wasn't me making the charges, but somehow they flagged it and called me. Both times there was no paperwork or anything, they just cancelled the fraudulent charges, closed the account, and sent me a new card. It was a bit of a pain because I have a number of bills that are automatically charged to my Discover card every month so I had to go in and change those, but other than that it was a quite painless experience.

Ok Thanks you Terry for the reassurance. I wasn't sure how CC #'s were handled now with the new owners. Thanks again. You answered all my concerns :-)

I, too, feel very confident using my CC to renew at DG. I've done so many times w/o problems. Except for an incident when my entire purse was stolen, I've never seen any fraudulent charges on my cards. I do almost all of my shopping online and rarely use my CC locally, btw.

My corporate CC was used once on a fraudulent $8K furniture shopping spree. It's interesting to note that while I used that card only rarely, I never used it online and used it almost exclusively for local shipping, printing, and office supplies. I never learned how it was compromised, but the bank's fraud dept told me with corp cards sometimes once the thieves get once card/number at a company, they auto generate a bunch of others until they stumble upon ones that work - meaning the thieves may never have seen my card or number before. (This may be another reason why thieves start out with the small charge to see if it goes through.)

Years ago my X had his CC compromised when he used it at a small local restaurant (no longer in business) and then found it maxed out with fraudulent charges soon after. At the restaurant he had used a card which hadn't been used in a year or more, so we were pretty sure the card was compromised at that restaurant some time between when he gave it to the waiter and when it returned to the table.

One more thing on the subject of compromised CCs. My CC has been replaced several times by the issuing bank when it (the CC number/info) was part of a large group of numbers stolen while in transit for processing w/in the banking system. I've read that this is another place where a lot of card numbers are stolen, and it's completely outside the control of the card holder.

That is what happened to us twice with the same company... compromised on their end.... .or they assumed it was. there actually was no fraud.

Pay-pal was my nemisis. If that is the only way I can purchase......I just cancel.

Reeeaally?

How did it get compromised through PayPal???

I've never had any issues with Paypal. In fact, I prefer to make my purchases through it when available. Less places with my CC info that way.

I've never had a problem with PayPal either. I've been using PayPal since the early days when it was X.com. Back then I used to think maybe I was giving my CC info to a couple of kids in their parents basement rather than an actual bank, but they always handled the transfers safely and professionally. I guess I've probably been using that service for over a decade now and have never had a problem. I even keep 2 or 3 cards on file with them.

As someone else mentioned and as I was trying to point out above with my own circumstances, it seems like most CC's are compromised when we give the card to local merchants not online as many fear. I wonder if yours may actually have been compromised locally and perhaps you just thought it was PayPal.

All that said, however, I've never been willing to give them access to my checking account. I'm just not comfortable with that arrangement for some reason - even though they have never done anything untoward with my CC's. With CC's I know that I am protected by law and cannot be held liable for fraudulent charges. The rules governing checking accounts are a little less comforting. For instance, if someone were to [fraudulently] drain your checking account dry (as actually happened to me once, BTW), depending on the bank's contract they probably have the right to "hold" your money for some inordinate amount of time while researching the fraud (even though the in my case the bank chose to put the money back right away, they could have chosen to keep it for some time until they had completed their fraud investigation). With a CC, on the other hand, the bank is required to remove a fraudulent charge as soon as you report it. You cannot be required to pay the money while they do the research.

My son got two bogus charges to his checking account through PayPal. He reported it the same day they appeared, and the bank & PayPal worked together; they handled it immediately and very professionally. It's been over a year, and he hasn't had any problems since.

One has to be alert with all financial accounts, or credit cards. I have not had any unauthorized charges to my credit cards, yet. But, I recently had a commercial check from out-of-state debited from my checking account. If I had not seen that the check number was not near the numbers that I was currently using, it possibly could have slipped through, until I proved my checking account. I also had American Express make an unauthorized debit from by checking account.
My bank took care of the issues. I tried to get American Express involved so it wouldn't happen again with their customer. I got no where. It was like talking to a bunch of idiots. Fill out the form, we'll get back to you within 8 weeks, etc., etc.

Remember, never be laissez-faire about your finances !

This message was edited Apr 18, 2010 9:24 PM

Can PayPal currently be used for DG subscription renewal?

If not, might this be possible later? (soon?)

I prefer PayPal as it protects my debit card that I use for most all of my purchases.

Thanks.

I just paid my subscription a couple of weeks ago with paypal. It was not a problem.

Thank you for your quick answer.

Yes, we've offered PayPal as a payment option for quite some time ;o)

Thanks Terry.

That's my favorite way to pay online too. I recently renewed my subscription using Paypal.

Joy

I won't touch PayPal with a 10 foot pole..............have gotten quite a few emails over the years saying "your PayPal account.......blah, blah, blah.........and sposed to give them some kind of numbers". Wait a minute, cowboys.............No gots no PP acct. so I know it is spam/hackers/whatever.

My CC has been compromised a couple times, but the company called me right away and it was taken care of immediately. I think what put up the red alert one time was the purchase DH made to the tune of almost 6K. LOL That time it was ok. But before that, yes, there were unauthorized charges.

The kind of emails you mention are phishing... not a result of PayPal being compromised, just an attempt to get you to divulge info. Whether it's PayPal or your credit card company that seems to have sent you a note like that, don't click the link in the email... if you want to check it out, either call them or go to the website your usual way.

That's exactly what I do Critter...never go to a website based on an email you receive.
Go to you main browser page and enter the web address and proceed from there.

Oh, I never go to them...........they are just an annoyance.