Another CC fraud ..

[vaporgalinfla]

Yeah its terrible how easy they get it. Im in the middle of going through the process with the credit card company and also filing a police report. The biggest mistake the people made was they made 3 purchaces to microsoft xbox live so the purchases will be able to be traced and charges filed. All transactions through them are ip logged and recorded as well as mac addresses so with some good fortune Ill get this one. They were stupid enough to use my info to create a account so they had full access to all the info of name credit card and all in order to do it so it has to be from one of the online sources.

A debit card from one of my bank accounts was also compromised. This past Saturday, I saw a charge in the amount of $2.11 to some company called SOUTH SANTA FE LIMITED. On the same day, there was a charge to XBox for $49.99. My bank cancelled the card and is crediting my account. The woman at the bank told me that the the person likely made the $2.11 charge to see if it would go through. Less than 15 minutes later, the Xbox purchase was made.

I called XBox today in an attempt to find out who used my card. Someone set up a new acct. this past Saturday and purchased points to buy a game. He/she used my credit card info, my name and home phone number. XBox is going to work with my bank and try to find out who did this.

As an fyi - I work from home and do all my shopping online. The only purchases I've made with this card since late February is for eliquids and supplies.

So... pay close attention to your bank account! I'm keeping my original account open, but also opened a second account. The woman at the bank advised that I solely use just one of the accounts. for online purchases. Whenever I'm going to order something, I'll transfer the exact amt. from my other acct.

 

[v1John]

Yes, credit problems have been around for years and years. Just open a new account or even with another bank. Either way, keep the account empty except at the time you place your order. If you're still worried, I guess support the brick&mortar walk-in ecig stores.

 

[spider362]

My CC has a "virtual CC number" feature. When I get ready to place an order I get a virtual CC number and set the upper limit to $5 - $10 above what I expect the order to be. Then I set the expiration date for 2 months (I can set it longer if I want to up to one year).

After the money's gone or it expires it's useless after that.

 

[quasimod]

That's awesome, spider. Can you cancel them youself, or do you have to let them expire to get the excess moved back into your main acct.? I should ask my banker about this.

Not that it should matter: since I started vaping I've given my CC# out to half of the e-cig and battery merchants in the US.

 

[spider362]

I can increase the $ amount, increase the expiration date (up to one year), and cancel the number entirely. The only thing I can't do is decrease the $ amount.

Also, there are no funds moved to or from the virtual CC number. It's just like you have 2 or more numbers assigned to your CC account. When the money is needed for the virtual CC number it comes out of your regular account. If the balance is never used it just stays in your regular CC account.

My CC company is FIA and the feature is called "Shop Safe".

This feature really works great.

 

[AiricR]

I just setup and used the PayPal Plugin for this various reason. It auto fills your address and generates a one time use CC # and Auto fills that in as well. It only seems to work on Internet explorer, Which sucks but it works great. Might want to give it a try.

 

[spider362]

If PayPal ever finds out you are using them to pay for e-cig stuff they may cut you off.

 

[daisyd]

Here's one for you all. A year or so ago, my dad recieved a computer via FedEX that he did not order. He checked his CC and sure enough it had been charged to him. They immediately got in touch with the company and shipped it back the next day. Well two days later UPS shows up to pick up the computer to be shipped back. Since they had already shipped it back with FedEX (because that is the company the computer place uses) they didn't give it to UPS. In the end it seems that my parent CC only allows purchases to be shipped to thier home address, so the theives sent it to my folks and then call UPS to come pick it up and ship it to them. While I am so glad it didn't work, I have to giva an A for ingenuity. It was a full week before my dad finally got someone at HP who had heard about this from anyone else. Apparently it had happened to several other people too.

 

[vaporgalinfla]

Yes, credit problems have been around for years and years. Just open a new account or even with another bank. Either way, keep the account empty except at the time you place your order. If you're still worried, I guess support the brick&mortar walk-in ecig stores.

That's what I did (opened another account). I'll use it just for purchases.

I'm not worried. It's more of a concern since this happened to others as well.

I work online from home and always do my shopping on the computer. No thanks on the brick & mortar stores! I don't even think there are any in my area.

 

[vaporgalinfla]

My CC has a "virtual CC number" feature. When I get ready to place an order I get a virtual CC number and set the upper limit to $5 - $10 above what I expect the order to be. Then I set the expiration date for 2 months (I can set it longer if I want to up to one year).

After the money's gone or it expires it's useless after that.

I'd love to have something like this. What bank do you have this credit card with?

 

[spider362]

I'd love to have something like this. What bank do you have this credit card with?

FIA and the feature is called "Shop Safe".

I'm sure other CC companies have something similar. Not all employees will know what you're talking about, so ask more than one person.

 

[vaporgalinfla]

FIA and the feature is called "Shop Safe".

I'm sure other CC companies have something similar. Not all employees will know what you're talking about, so ask more than one person.

Thanks... I will check and see if any of the banks that I have credit cards with offer this. What bank is FIA?

 

[NCC]

FWIW, I've been making online purchases at least once a week for the past decade. In those hundreds of transactions, I've had a single instance of fraudulent charges. My card company called me, I denied that I had made a purchase of some expensive French lingerie, they canceled the card and promptly sent me a replacement.

One case out of all the purchases I've made ... the convenience easily outweighs the hazard. And, it is far from clear the perp got my info from an online purchase.

 

[Quick1]

Thanks... I will check and see if any of the banks that I have credit cards with offer this. What bank is FIA?

Citibank has a similar feature.

 

[vaporgalinfla]

Quick1 - Thanks for letting me know. I have an account with Citi, so I'll check with them.

 

[spider362]

Let us know what you find out, vaporgalinfla. It would be nice to be able to pass the word.

As for my FIA card, I originally got it from my bank, Wachovia, but then the bank was sold to Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo then (I think) sold the Wachovia CC accounts to FIA (HA... I don't even know what FIA stands for. Google brings up a lot of hits, but none of them fit).

 

[Quick1]

Quick1 - Thanks for letting me know. I have an account with Citi, so I'll check with them.

I you have online access, go to www.accountonline.com, sign in, and at the top there is a dropdown menu for Tools & Services. In there is Get a Virtual Account Number which takes you to a page that explains everything. You can get the application for your personal PC or you can use it from the website from anywhere.

When you generate a virtual card it is the same as your regular card except that it has a different number, and expires at the end of next month. You don't "fund" it (so you can't limit it either). But that number is only exposed for at most 2 months and you certainly can track exactly where fraudulent charges came from. I generate a new card for every single online (or phone) purchase I make. With the app on your PC it will pop up (looks like a credit card ) when it sees a credit card form on your browser. You log in, click generate virtual card number, it fills in the credit card and will fill in the credit card form in the browser if you have it configured to do that.

Not quite as good as the one described above but extremely convenient to use, reduces your exposure, and everything you need for easy tracking.

 

[mick37]

update - i had my second card canceled today because of fraud
this was a new card and used only for e-cig suppliers
I don't want to point fingers, but the only purchases I had where :
Ikenvape, VaporKings, Wordup, V4L, VaporNine and iTunes ...

 

[AJMoore]

CitiCard calls it a "Virtual Account Number". You can find the instructions on their home page under "Tools". You have two options, utilize a web based system, great if you find yourself at different computers or you can download the program to you desktop or laptob. I'll see if the have one for my Droid, that would be too cool.

 

[mrjaguar]

update - i had my second card canceled today because of fraud
this was a new card and used only for e-cig suppliers
I don't want to point fingers, but the only purchases I had where :
Ikenvape, VaporKings, Wordup, V4L, VaporNine and iTunes ...

I've ordered from vaporkings, v4l, v9 and ikenvape, never had a problem with those.