Credit card number...stolen again!

[abu_sme]

This is the third time I have had my card number stolen. I had the pleasent surprise of around $400 in charges on my card to amazon. I use my card a lot, my statement is at a minimum 3 pages, so it is not hard to see how some corrupt cashier could pick it up somewhere along the chain. I've called PC again, and had them fix everything up for me, but I must look like a really bad customer because the only calls that I make are to tell them that my card has such and such charges that are not authorized.

It's not the money that pisses me off, it's costing me nothing..directly at least. What really irks me though is that I have to change all of my recurring transactions. I am pretty good at switching them over, and I have a checklist of all the transactions that occur monthly, but I always miss one and then I have merchants hunting me down threatening a collection on me.

Question here though, do they ever catch these guys? I've worked retail before and had stolen cards come in and I have been stalling the perp, but when I have called the cops they just laugh and come by the store at the end of their shift to make a report and that's ONLY if they get away with merchandise.

I get the impression that petty credit card fraud isn't even investigated by the RCMP, is this correct?

[JimG]

You can put "Ask for Photo ID" in the signature block of your credit card. Signing the back of your credit card doesn't do anything but help thieves. It won't stop people skimming your card and trying to make purchases online (I guess those extra numbers are supposed to help), but you should always be watching the cashier swipe your card.

[vickyvictoria]

it could be somewhere that you frequent using your card...and it's being skimmed there...
perhaps gas station? small convenience store? retail kiosk? i'm not saying that skimming only happens at these places, just some ideas...

i had a few clients skimmed at a swiss chalet... only found out because when investigated, that what the common place between all of them...

not to make light of your situation, but at least it was a credit card, debit card fraud takes a lot longer to get your money back....

ask what PC m/c fraud prevention methods are? I have found Amex to be very diligent, it may have inconvenienced me a little, but they were doing their due diligence... I was paying a down pymt portion for my car purchase for points, it was separated into 2 transactions, the 2nd one required a phone confirmation with me... and once i made several gift card purchases for the office, and they contacted me right away, b/c the amounts were large & happened consecutively. and all amex card renewals or new card requests come with the last 5 digits changed (yes, you would have to notify anything recurring or future booked)..

Verified by visa is also good online shopping security.
good luck

[neptunestar]

This is the third time I have had my card number stolen. I had the pleasent surprise of around $400 in charges on my card to amazon. I use my card a lot, my statement is at a minimum 3 pages, so it is not hard to see how some corrupt cashier could pick it up somewhere along the chain. I've called PC again, and had them fix everything up for me, but I must look like a really bad customer because the only calls that I make are to tell them that my card has such and such charges that are not authorized.

It's not the money that pisses me off, it's costing me nothing..directly at least. What really irks me though is that I have to change all of my recurring transactions. I am pretty good at switching them over, and I have a checklist of all the transactions that occur monthly, but I always miss one and then I have merchants hunting me down threatening a collection on me.

Question here though, do they ever catch these guys? I've worked retail before and had stolen cards come in and I have been stalling the perp, but when I have called the cops they just laugh and come by the store at the end of their shift to make a report and that's ONLY if they get away with merchandise.

I get the impression that petty credit card fraud isn't even investigated by the RCMP, is this correct?

Its not the retailer that the crooks go to buy the stuff that you have to worry about, its the place where they have copied your credit card number that you have to be worried about. Gasstations are famouse for it as I read it the Star a while back about a bunch on indians or sri lankans getting busted. Anyway hope this helps, http://www.phoenixvillenews.com/site...id=17915&rfi=6

[Nyte]

It's not the money that pisses me off, it's costing me nothing..directly at least. What really irks me though is that I have to change all of my recurring transactions. I am pretty good at switching them over, and I have a checklist of all the transactions that occur monthly, but I always miss one and then I have merchants hunting me down threatening a collection on me.

Why don't you just use two credit cards? One for all the recurring stuff, and the other for regular spending. Most likely, the fraud will occur on the regular spending one, but if its on the recurring one, now you have a list for your CC company to look into.

[abu_sme]

It hasn't been skimmed, I'm 100% certain of that, because all of the charges are to online places. When I worked for a retailer that took cards any employee could read the card numbers, heck, they could even re-print merchant copies of receipts that DO display the entire card number, name on card, and expiration date. I was told that quite a few transactions were turned down because the billing address was my old one...which happens to be in the phone book. I'm starting to put some things together on this one.

It's pretty freakin easy to do this, no extra equipment involved. What truly terrified me when I worked for the compnay I worked for before was that we had in store credit cards and we processed the applications in store.
SO picture this, you have minimum wage employees working for a company that treats their employees poorly, you have an awful customer in front of you demanding to get a credit card, so you take down all of his information: SIN, mothers maiden name, address, employer, all of it, You put this paper application in an unlocked filing cabinet underneath the open floor till that anyone has access to...

I wish I could do all transactions online where the credit card number doesn't see human eyes, it's much safer.