Credit Card Fraud

I have ordered Palm seedlings from 3 palm co. Someone has got my Debit Card #, Name, Address, and God only knows what else. I dont know if I can name the companys, (Can I) One was and Un-Secured site. This person took me for $1,500 dollars which my bank will cover. It was taking out of my checking account. I closed It. He or She made Large Purchases from Register.com, Yahoo Phonecard, even opened an account with Yahoo with my name. Also, Deltathree, Inc, and network Solutions. And some sex sites. I know these are web hosting sites. What is this person doing? Should I expect the FBI at my home at any time. Feed-back Please. Thank you all very much

Sorry I can't help... I don't have credit or debit cards or checking accounts. I had a check book stolen once and that was all I needed to scare me off!
Write to those companies and tell them that it was not you and to cancel any "subscriptions" or any access.
Let them know it was stolen...
ICE

wow ice
how do you pay for stuff? the rate things go it's hard to get by with just cash sometimes

PostmanSeb...Since you are not sure about all the info this person has about you I'd run my credit report just in case. I'm glad your bank reimbursed your money. They will probably be the ones investigating this situation, so I wouldn't worry about the FBI knocking at your door.
Carol

There was a very good 'credit card' protection law passed back (in 1968 I think). 'Debit card' protection is not so uniform or powerful. You are quite fortunate that your bank helped you. Look at the fine print from the bank. In some states they will give you credit for the losses for 30 days and then recharge you if you cannot prove the charges are in error. In the future use a 'credit card only'. Not one of those duel debit/credit cards. Report all misuse immediately by phone and then follow-up in writing. Copies should go to the credit card and to the offending vendor whenever you can find the address of the offending vendor.

Seb,

Sorry to hear of the fraud against you. I used to work for a major UK bank and am only too well aware of the perils of giving out a credit card numbers etc.. Despite my former employ, I rarely, if ever, buy over the net (or phone) using my credit card. You may think that puts me at a disadvantage when buying stuff, but it doesnt. I work on the simple principle that if the shop wants my business, it has to accept MY way of paying for it (cash, cheque or whatever).

Good shopping,

El Tel

I used to work for Bank of America and also worked for a credit reporting agency. Bad things like this can happen whether you use your card over the internet, telephone or even in a store or ATM. You are at risk no matter how well you cover yourself. The best thing to do is whatever is the most convenient for you as far as use of the card and deal with the possible fraud that may or may not follow. Of course it is inconvenient. The comforting part is that you do have recourse. If reported right away then you can usually have ALL the chrges reversed even though they say you are responsible for at least $50 of it. Unless you make someone really mad then they will usually not hold you responsible for that first $50, so be patient, persistant but above all polite. It is not the banks fault and they will do whatever they can to help you if you do what you can to help them. You will most likely be required to file a police report as well. As far as the credit report is concerned, definately get a report pulled. Look in your yellow pages under credit and find your local credit reporting agency. If you have trouble then call your bank and see if they have a phone number of who they use. You can call any agency because they all get their info from the same place which is the usually the three major bureaus: TRW (fka Experian), Equifax, and TransUnion. I believe Novuss is another one that most agencies do not use but if you call Discover they can help you get that report. Anyway, by law you are entitled to a free credit report if you are a vicim of fraud, unemployed or been denied credit. Again, they may require a notorized letter from you, copy of a dnial or a police report in the case of fraud. If you talk very nicely though they may just take the request over the phone and send you the tri-merge (all 3 reports together). They should also give it to you if you go to your local office in person. If they try to tell you that you must write to the individual bureaus however then they are telling you wrong and putting you off and that is against the law. This would happen sometimes at the place I worked at (for ONLY 3 months). Anyway, that is a small summary of some of your rights. By the way, when you find things on your credit report that do not belong, inaccurate or expired then you need to personally write to the individual bureaus to have them investigated and corrected or removed. You would be surprised at some of the things that are on your report. Almost everyone has info that needs to be corrected and a periodic review of your report will help you to stay ontop of it and save you some heartache when you go to apply for a loan.

Well, goodluck. If you have any questions about what I said or need any help feel free to contact me via email.

Angel

Thank You all for your support. The bank has started to credit my account today. Over 17 Transactions were made by this nut. One of the sites I went to informed me that the server they used was hacked. Remember never use an ATM/Debit card to order anything over the net!!

Postman - how terrible! I hope you get this resolved. As Angel indicated though, this type of thing can happen to anyone even those that do not have credit cards. 8 years ago I had to take my dd to a physical therapist for some knee injuries. We could hear conversations at the other "stations". A woman who appeared to be no older than 21 was telling her therapist about her problem. She had a fairly common name like Mary Johnson. One day a deputy sheriff appeared at her door with a warrant for her for writing bad checks. She discovered that someone was using her name to open checking accounts, charge accounts, etc. She finally figured out that while doing a rotation at a psychiatric ward for her nursing trainig, that a woman with the same name obtained her birth date and social security number and that was all it took to mess up this woman's credit history.

I have been told my a banking friend that ATM cards are more dangerous than credit cards because a stolen/lost check can be used in place of an ATM card and a person's account can be emptied using one check because many stores will now swipe a check through a check id machine for people to purchase items.

I got nailed in 65 before the proctection.

I ordered a $500 electronic flash unit from NY,

The guy there ran up 3K before the card company stopped it.

I was responsible for all of it, I hired a lawyer to try to beat it.

It cost me $7,500 for all of it, plus loss of credit rating..

Byron