Credit Card Fraud - TLG COMPHME

[Krakkan]

PayPal and eBay are the same company. They have a policy against e-cigarettes. I searched eBay and "learned" that a personal vaporizer is a prescription item in the United States. That's why PayPal lets PV vendors from other countries use them.

I wish some of the suppliers would set up with Google or Amazon checkout.


ETA: Mine's good. But it's funny. My credit card bill used to be drug store, drug store, drug store (cigarettes). Now, in the 2 weeks since they cut my last invoice, 7 of the 12 charges were to PV suppliers.

Paypal/Google and Amazon all dont allow E-Cig sales either -- If wish to be safe get a PAypal account and then get their Credit Card Generator it is a plug in for Internet Explorer allows you to generate a credit card number for one time use at any website you ever go to -- EDIT NM the Paypal Plgin is no longer available

 

[t3hp00ky]

Funny I see this, I had another company charge me $39.00, but my charge was TLG - Live Well.net about a month ago. I had to have my card shutdown and was without access to my accounts for a whole 3 weeks. (Good thing I'm deployed right now and don't need any money really.)

I traced this back to 1800flowers, and a few other people who had ordered from them also got hit shortly after with the same charge. If you look up their website. Just my two cents.

 

[CaptJay]

weird - flowers company (a different one but internet accessed) got me also last year. My CC company alerted me that 'I' was buying train tickets in Paris..and they were very suspicious (altho one of my cards lives in UK, I live in USA and they knopw this so they knew it wasnt me lol). Got everything back after I signed a statement for them; they were very good about it.

 

[martha1014]

I only use my debit card. I have not had any fradulant charges from ecig suppliers. About 3 months ago I had 3 charges come through that I had not made. I immediately called my bank and the reversed the charged. I cancelled my card.

My husband has an online business and he uses pay pal for all of his transctions. During Christmas he gets a lot of orders where the purchaser orders and has it sent to someone else. He received a call from a customer that said he did not order the item. We then contacted the person this was mailed to. He stated he had purchased it through ebay and paid using his credit card. He gave him the sellers name and transction number he used on ebay. The seller had used a stolen credit card. The seller was not out any money. We got intouch with ebay and they said they would investigate but never did. We got a charge back of 160.00.

I thought this was a clever scheme. The seller no longer sells anything on ebay. I read the reviews on this person and other people reported fradulent claims.

I check my debit account everyday.

There is just too much fraud going on using the internet.

 

[deitra]

That's a scary thought since most of use our CCs for e cig purchases.

 

[dgriego]

Well I got hit with charges on my account that were hitting every month. As it turns out it was a company associated with Wells Fargo (or so they say) and they tried to say I was sent a trial and had to cancel in 90 days if I did not want to be charged. Well I never talk to people on the phone and I never accept their offers. So I sent a letter to my bank and reamed them for giving my info to this company, demanded they put a stop on the payments and refund my money. They did.
So be aware that some of the banks are hooking up with some of these people who offer a service and charges you a monthly fee. It seems you do not even have to accept their offer in order to be charged.

 

[Debbie]

Thanks for the heads-up. I usually try to keep a close eye on my statements, but it always helps to be reminded of why it needs to be done.

Debbie

 

[Col. Gaunt]

Strange that they won't accept Pay Pal, often wondered why..any one have and ideas?

Paypal is owned by EBAY and ebay stopped allowing people to sell ecig items on their site. I think that it might have to do with the current controversy that the government has with the idea that the fruit flavored e-liquid that is sold will tempt minors in getting into vaping.

Gee but they don't have a problem with kids buying analogs or alcohol right?

I think that the government is just ...... off that they are not getting a piece of the vaping market like they do for analogs and alcohol.

 

[joglaze]

Glad to see this on the net. I ordered from Kingpin and suddenly there was a charge for only $9.81 from a place called DVDforFree. Then a pirated cd came in the mail entitled "When Women Lost Their Tails". What is free about that and what would a 62 year old great-grandmother do with something like that? I'm going by the bank to file a complaint. Then I am sending it back and warning them that I have family living in their area, including a US Marshal. The return address is in Ocean, NJ, and their bulk mail permit number comes out of New Brunswick. I will be making complaints there, too. I am more than a little concerned about ordering from Kingpin again since that seems to be what I have in common with another poster.

Too bad for Kingpin. They will lose a lot of business because of this.

 

[Mr_Phil]

Paypal will no longer allow payment for Ecigarettes. My first two purchases were through Paypal and came though okay, but the second company sent me an email that Paypal had closed their account until they quit selling Ecig and Vapor products.

Interesting that I ordered a spare batt and atty and paid via paypal on the 4th of the month.

Vender was clearly ecig as well. Got the link from ECF. I wonder how they are getting around paypals ban?

 

[redrhino]

Thanks for the Heads up....Will take a closer look at my statement from now on....

 

[Majestic]

A couple of years ago I had one of my charge card numbers get out. Fortunately an on-line merchant called my house to verify an order as they were suspicious of the sale and that tipped me off. The card was then canceled with only 3 small unauthorized charges made and the company quickly credited my account for those purchases. What I found out at the time is that the crooks will start using your stolen charge credit number to make some small purchases to see if they go through. If they do, then they start increasing the dollar amount of the items till the card gets canceled.

Since then I found the easiest way to keep up-to-date on credit card activity is to take advantage of any e-mail alerts your card company may offer. I have my cards set up to send me an e-mail alert any time there is a transaction whether it is a debit or credit. That way I not only know when there is charge activity, but I also know when they received my snail mail payment.

 

[darkmatter22]

and yet they get away with it

 

[Lorihalia]

Interesting. I'm only just now seeing this, but on Feb 28th, I placed orders with 5 or 6 suppliers (I'd have to dig up my emails to remember who all I purchased from) - I also did a lot of PV research in general. Late on March 1st, I received an e-mail from Blu telling me my (much earlier) order with them was rejected due to insufficient funds - no Blus for me!

Upon checking my bank account, I found a just over $1600 purchase to BestBuy.com, and a second purchase for just shy of $600 to Nokia. Nokia was supremely uninterested in the fact that this purchase was done with a stolen card, but did cancel the order. Best Buy on the other hand was very helpful, and while they wouldn't give me the full address of where it was being sent (they said it was to protect the privacy of the other party - uhm, hello, they stole from ME! why do they get privacy??), they did tell me it was being sent to Texas.

We got ours cleared up, but I did also want to mention that immediately after I learned of the theft, I ran a virus scan on my system and found 6 trojans (all hiding in Java) and a worm. None of which had been there two days before on the last scan.

 

[Mr_Phil]

I posted in #50 wondering how someone would get thru paypals ban. I still don't know. I ordered a spare batt and an atty from an ECF supplied link. I don't see them as being at fault for what happened next. I think it was just coincidence.

Anyway here's my story and I hope it benifits everyone.

After reading this thread, as luck would have it, paypal limited my account due to 3rd party activity. It showed a 100.00 transfer against two of my banks.

I contacted each bank to warn them. One transfer had gone thru. The bank assigned an ACH investigation to it. The other had not appeared yet and the bank initiated a preventative stop payment based on the info I provided from paypal.

I contacted paypal and discovered something.
1st: The method of attack was that someone got my PW and initiated a transfer from my bank to my paypal account.
2nd: Paypal cannot stop those. They can only stop payments initiated from the PP balance.
3rd: By changing my PW, the money will hit my PP ACCT and they cannot get it to move it out. So, the money is safe. I can transfer it back to my bank and ensure documentation via the fraud investigation initiated earlier.
4th. I must transfer it back. The bank will be prepared to credit my account based on my report. If I don't put the money back there will be $200 involved instead of $100.

Steps to take to contain the attack.

First: Notify the banks first.
Second: Notify Paypal and change your password.

Document everything said and make copies of the website pages. Put your notes on the pages themselves. To do this you can either printscreen and hand write it, or use a program like ZOTERO to do it. The important thing is to be able to refer back to it weeks later if needed. BTW Zotero is also great to create a snapshot of the webpage "receipt" if you ever need it.

I hope this helps someone down the road.

Phil

PS, my stuff arrived today. I now feel safe since I have a spare batt and atty. My 4081 has been vaping many days and I was afraid of an out of the blue outage.... whew, dodged the bullet.

 

[Quick1]

.
1st: The method of attack was that someone got my PW and initiated a transfer from my bank to my paypal account.
3rd: By changing my PW, the money will hit my PP ACCT and they cannot get it to move it out. So, the money is safe.

How did they get your password in the first place?

 

[Mr_Phil]

I have no clue

 

[rosesense]

I did that once when I didn't receive an item. Paypal claimed in my favor but the other party closed their account right after my purchase. As a result paypal said I can't recover any funds. I disputed it with my CC company and got my money back. Paypal sent me to collections. I'll never use them again.

Thanks for bringing this up. I try to alert people who think all is safe with Paypal and they usually blow me off. Ebay purchases through Paypal are covered but not anything else through Paypal. I have been ripped off twice now. The last one was almost funny in that they froze the seller's account giving me all the money in that account (all of 1.30) and asked me if I wanted them to unfreeze their account and close the dispute (since I had received 1.30). Unfortunately, I gave the seller 400.00.

I just hope that no one gets a false sense of security about Paypal. I didn't know I could dispute with cc company on a paypal. I will see if it is too late. I did get all but 90.00 of my money back by badgering the seller.

 

[Quick1]

Thanks for bringing this up. I try to alert people who think all is safe with Paypal and they usually blow me off. Ebay purchases through Paypal are covered but not anything else through Paypal.

This seems to be very much the case. Paypal does little or nothing towards resolution of disputes outside of eBay transactions.

It's best to always use your credit card when paying through paypal (as opposed to direct from a bank account or your paypal funds if you keep any in there). Then you can utilize your credit card's dispute resolution services which are usually quite good.

An exception to that might be transferring funds to a personal paypal account where you know and/or trust the recipient. If you "pay" through paypal to a personal account using your credit card they will deduct 3% for the credit card fees. If you pay using your bank account they do not deduct the 3%. Note: I believe they always charge the business accounts the 3%. At least this is how it used to be.

 

[rosesense]

One other thing I hate about Payal is they default to your bank account each time and you have to manually change to cc for the transaction. Years ago I did not know that and the first time I was ripped off, nothing I could do about it since it came straight out of my bank account. I avoided getting 'verified' for that reason so no bank account popping up. Recently due to the high amount of an order, they said I had to get verified and of course, now it defaults to bank account every time. Arggh!