ALERT: Found fraudulent charges on my VISA, only ordered from 3 online vendors last month (Lik-Sang, buildabear, uhaul)

[LiQiCE]

Mods, please feel free to lock this or move it to off-topic if you dont deem it applicable to all of our users. I just wanted to warn everyone that I noticed 3 charges totalling over $900 in charges to Verizon Wireless in "SCHAUMBERG" ... dont know where the heck that is. I ordered quite a few things last month, but only three orders were placed online. Now it isnt very hard to steal my credit card number by physically swiping it through a machine meant to steal numbers, but just incase it was from one of the three sites getting hacked, I figured I'd tell you. I placed an order at Lik-Sang, buildabear.com (birthday present for a friend), and uhaul.com (to reserve a truck) ...

I'm not quite sure if any of these online vendors are responsible, but just be wary that this could be a potential problem. I am more wary of lik-sang.com just because they are an international vendor.

I also placed orders recently with Amazon.com and Moversguide.com (to process an address change request), but both of these requests were using a random credit card # (similar to American Express's One Time use numbers) so I do not think that the problem stemmed from either of those purchases.

All of my other charges were from relatively reputable places, the Home Depot, Exxon (where I never give the card to anybody), BestBuy and a supermarket. In all of those situations, the card never left my hand, it only went through one of those swiping machines at the cash register.

Hope this helps somebody. Just make sure to check your credit card statements every day!!!

 

[TranceNation]

lol, doesn't have to be 1 of those 3, if u used your cc at all (ie, at a restaurant, grocery store, shopping mall, etc) your CC # can be had that way also, just because you only 'swiped' it through your machine doesn't mean those stores didn't go ahead an print out your cc # and then throw it in the trash for people to pick up.
btw, what did u buy at lik-sang?

 

[oniq]

Wasn't there a big thing about BestBuy using wireless registers to transmit credit card information? Maybe thats what got you, just a thought...

 

[LostHiWay]

I guarantee you it was uhaul.com. I own a mini-storage that does U-haul on the side. If you reserve a truck through U-Haul.com all the information including CC# gets forwarded to your local dealer (via unsecure email) for them to run the reservation and set it up. At that point ANY $5 hr employee they have can access your CC#

 

[slycat]

i check my 2 cards almost daily!

 

[LiQiCE]

trancenation,

Yeah I know its possible to physically steal my credit card easily. I am not assuming its one of the three online vendors, but just trying to give a heads up to anyone who might have ordered from one of those vendors. Good thing the credit card companies dont make me responsible for the charges!!! BTW-I ordered a Playstation/Dreamcast/Saturn controller adapter for X-Box from Lik-Sang ... Works like a charm!

LostHiWay,

That is very disturbing that they have such little care about security in this day and age. I will definitely not be using Uhaul again if that is the case!

The interesting thing is that I dont think the charges made from Verizon Wireless were local ... they list the city as "SCHAUMBERG" and there doesnt exist a city under that name in Virginia or in the United States according to mapquest/mapblast ... I know its possible for the Uhaul guy to take my credit card and give it to somebody in another country, but I would think that it would be an online vendor if it was an international charge. Thats the only reason I suspected an online thing.

 

[Evadman]

Verizon Wireless in "SCHAUMBERG"

Said store is in the same shopping strip mall that the HD I work at is in. You want me to get a phone number from them or something? PM me.

 

[crypticlogin]

Schaumberg, Illinois. For some reason, that's the only 'Schaumberg' that comes to mind. And sorry for the fraud -- checking once a day is good advice to everyone.

 

[alm99]

I hate to hear that, I deal with this everyday at work with Verizon and fraudulent CC charges, the weird thing majority of the chargebacks(when the CC holder disputes the charges) are out of Shaumberg. Its usually someone who gets your CC# and goes and buys a bunch of equipment or prepaid cards.

 

[LiQiCE]

Yeah I generally check my statements every couple of days. This particular charge happened on Wednesday, so it didnt take too long for me to pickup on it. It is still actually a temporary charge on my account so my credit card company won't even look into it until it actually posts. It seems highly suspect that 3 separate charges totalling up to $900 got onto my charge account though... So I doubt it is just some sortof accident or a temporary charge that will go away.

Thanks for all the help people have been providing. I just hope nobody else got hit with this!

 

[Evadman]

Thankfully there is only one Schaumburg in the country. and no Schaumberg's It gets misspelled all the time.

Mapquest store map.

 

[ktg]

Wow. Just got a form letter from citibank about my VISA yesterday. Seems they're concerned someone "might have" fraudelently accessed my card #. They don't indicate any specific charges, and I didn't see any bogus ones on my last statement, but they want me to change my card/account # anyway. Anyone else get this mailing?

 

[Madib]

ACK! Don't do it, ktg!! Check this thread out.....

C2it Scam

 

[dealmaker]

actually I got one of those citibank fraud alerts yesterday as well. Apparently citibank owns ATandT universal card. I called the CSR and at first she would not tell me which site was compromised. I figured since I bought so many things this past few days it might have appeared in there systems as strange activity. After some coercing, she said it that they are just asking to close the account as a precautionary measure due to the egghead compromise. I never ordeded anything from egghead but I do remember I bought from ONSALE!!! Doh!!!! NOw I got to really check my statements!

 

[SXMP]

Just another confirmation: I live very close to SCHAUMBERG, IL. It exists =)

 

[XFreebie]

verizon will skrew u like that. all your money are belong to RBOC!

 

[LiQiCE]

Well, I called my credit card company, and low and behold ... the charges posted today. So I re-iterated that the charges were fraudulent, but their fraud department isn't open until Monday so I cannot get in touch with them until then to open up an investigation. Maybe they'll actually figure out the source of the problem... although I tend to doubt it since its not very easy to figure out where my credit card number was taken from.

 

[Wolverine27]

I received a fraud alert letter from Citibank this past week. I called to cancel my account.

The CSR told me the alert was in regard to an internet merchant's CC database being hacked. FWIW, she told me the site was Netflix.com

 

[lessell]

For all: an open secret in the credit card industry is the massive leakage of credit card numbers through internet sites. Hacking is only the tip of the iceberg, the large rate of failure of internet businesses and the loss of their data bases puts thousands of accounts at risk every month. If you shop on line either do so with a single use account number that several companies offer or with a internet only card that you can control the available credit with.

 

[scoreadeal]

Yeah, get a single card for all your online stuff... makes it easier to narrow down where things are coming from. Also, most Visa companies still say you are liable for up to $50 of the charge, so when shopping for an internet card, get one with no liability like FirstUSA cards... there are probably others out there as well, but FirstUSA also has fixed 9.99% offer, so they aren't too bad, plus they have a pretty decent online interface. Other than that, I suppose you could get those one time use numbers that the various card companies generate for you, but I know those are a pain to get each time, and you often don't get points or rewards for using those.

 

[SDOG34]

I also live right near Schaumburg...if you need any investigations/beatings to occur lmk

 

[uri]

My credit card was compromised, too. I locked it as soon as the first transfer alert reached me. A tag I leave in exery on line transaction linked the fraud to information from Tiger Direct. It seem to have leaked from a third party to whom they revealed confidential charge information I am not going to deal with them again.
In my case the criminals charged the card for money transfers through C2IT, PayPal and DSPAY. Of all three, DSPAY caught the fraud immediately and stopped it. Paypal caught 2 out of three fraudulant transactions and actually transfered cash outside the US without chacking the credentials on a new account, or the authenticity of the crediut card (They charged the Visa with a name that does not exist on the account and admitted to it via US mail stating there was a problem with the third charge....).
C2IT was so eager to do business that they did not authenticate anything and performed multiple transfers of large sums of money... even though the name on the Visa account did not match the name they charged with. Citicorp Visa, C2IT and PayPal pretended as if they do not see anything wrong.
These are the steps I recommand to follow:
I opened an official mail fraud complaint against Citicorp, and Paypal for their transfer of money without checking the name nor authenticating anything.
I opened an official complaint against Citicorp and PayPal with the FTC.
I filed an official fraud complaint, against Citicorp and PayPal with the state artturney office.
I Contacted the FBI and filed official interstate fraud report against Citicorp and Paypal.
I reported a fraud alert to any Credit bureau I could find.
I locked the account and placed the bank on fraud notice, in writing.

The bank wanted a signed affidavit to cancel the fraudulant charges. In the affidavit they included a waiver of future suites and claims. Well, I had to start the criminal investigation going, first. I think the bank actually was an accessory to the crime by overlooking authentication, taht is like leaving Citicorps safety deposit vaults' doors wide open.
Good lucjk to you folks

 

[EvanGeliSt]

Common advice: Check ur statements regularly.... my sister stopped using her card for like 3 years and suddenly her bill came for $3000!!! Just beware of such things..

P.S Watch out for magazine or some unrecognizable details on your statement. I got billed from a magazine compay earlier on for NOTHING... their reply was just "We thought you might be interested..."

:disgust:

 

[shutrbug]

My Mastercard got hit with two charges from DSPAY.COM which looks like a payment service for porn sites. I tried calling the 800 number on the charge but it is perpetually busy. This is the second time this year that my CC # from Shell Mastercard has been compromised. Maybe I'll have to use my Amex Blue Private Payments more often online.

 

[Overzeetop]

shutrbug-

I got charges from DSPAY over the last three statements. My wife checks the statements, and she didn't catch the first one until it repeated the next month. The third (both listed in Seoul) occured after we discovered the first two, but before we'd gotten that statement. One of the numbers rang through, and I talked to a very polite CS rep. He verified that I was not Jobie with the password Rootme (gotta laugh at that one), and send me an email with the date, login/passwd, and the IP which was used in the transaction. My CC company put a stop on the card and initiated the dispute for me. The IP, I found, is a UUNET dialup pool, so it doesn't look too good for finding these creeps.