Keep a close eye on your credit card statements

[Plaz]

Always good advice regardless, but be advised that according to a few threads on Reddit, there has been a rash of fraudulent charges against several vapemail customers lately. Nothing conclusive about the source of the problem yet, but one common nexus seems to be purchases from AVE. Ben at AVE has been amazingly professional and responsive to this potential problem, and has taken his payment system offline temporarily pending his own internal investigation.

I ordered 30ml of Boba's Bounty (GREAT juice) last week and haven't seen any problems on my card yet. But I'm keeping a very close eye online, and may get a new card/number just to be safe.

To be clear, this is no slam against AVE. They've been handling the situation perfectly, as far as I can tell. If anything, this handling of the potential problem encourages me to stick by them and do more business with them once this is resolved. (Plus, their juice is so good!)

One of the discussion threads on this issue:

http://www.reddit.com/r/electronic_...edit_card_fraud_alert_just_got_an_alert_from/

AVE's response direct link:

http://www.reddit.com/r/electronic_...rd_fraud_alert_just_got_an_alert_from/c8xdo4w

 

[mmudder]

I recently had a problem as well. My bank, being the awesome bank that it is, caught the problem and never let anything pass. I ended up cancelling my card and ordering another one. Before I started vaping, I very rarely ordered anything from the internet, though I've never had any problems like that before. There were two attempts on my card that the bank caught. The first was an attempt to preauthorize a $0 purchase from Napster. The second was a $1.95 attempt from Epoch, which is a third party biller for internet companies. Upon investigation, I found that the attempt from Epoch was linked to an...adult related website. No one here at home has access to my card, so it was clear that the culprit is some sort of an identity theft attempt. The bank told me that it's common for them to first attempt to authorize very small amounts to gain access to the card. After that, they clean you out. I was just lucky that my bank of awesomeness caught it before it was approved.

Norton doesn't seem to protect as well as I thought it would. Now, I have a new card. Though, I'm scared to order anything else from the internet. I'm not sure how I'm going to fund my vaping from now on.

Now that you mention it, the attempt happened just a few days after ordering from AVE. Hopefully, AVE can get the situation all sorted out. I agree that they are a very pleasant company to do business with.

 

[Ryan1888]

Happened to me also but luckily my bank got in touch with me to let me know what was happening.
You can never be too careful online and also it is nice to see that banks are finally doing their job.

 

[dosu24]

I wonder what the problem really was, but good job for the vendor putting out a notice at least

 

[mommyofdoom]

Wow! Scary. My last AVE order was on the 2nd and I have no fraudulent charges. I'm wondering if I should cancel the card anyway...

 

[davelog]

I recently had a problem as well. My bank, being the awesome bank that it is, caught the problem and never let anything pass. I ended up cancelling my card and ordering another one. Before I started vaping, I very rarely ordered anything from the internet, though I've never had any problems like that before. There were two attempts on my card that the bank caught. The first was an attempt to preauthorize a $0 purchase from Napster. The second was a $1.95 attempt from Epoch, which is a third party biller for internet companies. Upon investigation, I found that the attempt from Epoch was linked to an...adult related website. No one here at home has access to my card, so it was clear that the culprit is some sort of an identity theft attempt. The bank told me that it's common for them to first attempt to authorize very small amounts to gain access to the card. After that, they clean you out. I was just lucky that my bank of awesomeness caught it before it was approved.

Norton doesn't seem to protect as well as I thought it would. Now, I have a new card. Though, I'm scared to order anything else from the internet. I'm not sure how I'm going to fund my vaping from now on.

Now that you mention it, the attempt happened just a few days after ordering from AVE. Hopefully, AVE can get the situation all sorted out. I agree that they are a very pleasant company to do business with.

I'm currently looking into re-doing the way I shop online. I think I'm gonna get one of those gift/credit cards that you can load money on to at will and use that, that way if it's compromised it doesn't offer access into my core finances, and I only stand to lose what I've specifically loaded onto it for online shopping.

 

[mommyofdoom]

I'm currently looking into re-doing the way I shop online. I think I'm gonna get one of those gift/credit cards that you can load money on to at will and use that, that way if it's compromised it doesn't offer access into my core finances, and I only stand to lose what I've specifically loaded onto it for online shopping.

That's not a bad idea. I have an empty Visa gift card from Christmas, I think I'll start reloading and using it.

 

[mmudder]

I may end up doing that as well. Some of those can have insane, hidden charges, though. It's very disheartening the amount of trouble the average person has to go through in order to protect themselves against theft. Some people in this world aren't worth spit.

 

[dwolf111]

Pre-paid cards are a great way to order things from the internet, a great way to protect yourself.

 

[billyd7]

Wow, I ordered from AVE in the past month and received a phonecall from fraud dept on Friday. Someone was trying to charge plane tickets for 600 bucks to my card. Luckily, they flagged it. AVE is doing the right thing, and I will not hesitate to order from them again once this is cleared up.

 

[Berylanna]

Norton doesn't seem to protect as well as I thought it would. Now, I have a new card. Though, I'm scared to order anything else from the internet. I'm not sure how I'm going to fund my vaping from now on.

Now that you mention it, the attempt happened just a few days after ordering from AVE. Hopefully, AVE can get the situation all sorted out. I agree that they are a very pleasant company to do business with.

Check out Dwolla. It is less convenient but beats the heck out of running out of something. GotVapes takes them, as does a second vendor (I forget who) that I've used in the last 3 months. Maybe you can get AVE to sign up too.

Dwolla has to be pre-loaded like a gift card, but the fees are low to non-existant. I do not load Dwolla from my main bank account, I use a secondary account with very little money in it.

 

[GregoTX]

I was notified of fraud with my card last Friday also. Some schmuck used my card # at a clothing store in Beijing. Can't pinpoint any particular vendor (and it may not be ANY e-cig vendor) as I've ordered from 5 or 6 different ones over the past few weeks...but none overseas. New card should be here today.

 

[spider362]

I use "ShopSafe", a feature of my CC that allows me to create a one-time CC number with an upper limit of my choosing and an expiration of between 2 to 12 months. I get a new number each time I make an on-line order and add a couple dollars above the actual costs and leave the expiration time at the default 2 months. This is a free service from my CC company so it doesn't cost me anything.

 

[Horselady154]

I use "ShopSafe", a feature of my CC that allows me to create a one-time CC number with an upper limit of my choosing and an expiration of between 2 to 12 months. I get a new number each time I make an on-line order and add a couple dollars above the actual costs and leave the expiration time at the default 2 months. This is a free service from my CC company so it doesn't cost me anything.

That's a great idea. What credit card company offers that?

 

[middleborn]

Prepaid is the way I go.
The card I use charges $3 every time I load it and no monthly fees.
Thats it!
It may sound like a lot to some, but look at the cost and hassle you go through when some doo doo head hacks your card.
And like some previous posts have said...
Just never load a lot of money on it.
I only load what I plan to spend at that time.

 

[jazon1]

I recently had a problem as well. My bank, being the awesome bank that it is, caught the problem and never let anything pass. I ended up cancelling my card and ordering another one. Before I started vaping, I very rarely ordered anything from the internet, though I've never had any problems like that before. There were two attempts on my card that the bank caught. The first was an attempt to preauthorize a $0 purchase from Napster. The second was a $1.95 attempt from Epoch, which is a third party biller for internet companies. Upon investigation, I found that the attempt from Epoch was linked to an...adult related website. No one here at home has access to my card, so it was clear that the culprit is some sort of an identity theft attempt. The bank told me that it's common for them to first attempt to authorize very small amounts to gain access to the card. After that, they clean you out. I was just lucky that my bank of awesomeness caught it before it was approved.

Norton doesn't seem to protect as well as I thought it would. Now, I have a new card. Though, I'm scared to order anything else from the internet. I'm not sure how I'm going to fund my vaping from now on.

Now that you mention it, the attempt happened just a few days after ordering from AVE. Hopefully, AVE can get the situation all sorted out. I agree that they are a very pleasant company to do business with.

norton or any other anti virus cant protect your CC, if you order something online you are sending your info to the website one of two things can happen that software protection on your end cant protect is: one someone who works at the store ordered from can just copy your info and use it at a later date or, two if the site stores the CC info someone can hack there server and get all your CC info most sites have learned to not store your info any more but some still do

about the only thing norton or other anti virus will protect you from CC wise would be a key logger recording and sending the info you type,it cant help with anything that happens on the other end of the connection.

 

[spider362]

That's a great idea. What credit card company offers that?

I'm using Bank of America, but I think the service is available from quite a few different ones.

You can call your CC's service center and ask. If they don't know just go online to your account and poke around and you might find it there. Look for "ShopSafe" (no quotes).

 

[tammyh]

If you don't want to go the pre paid card road, then get a second bank account and only transfer money to it when you are purchasing something. You can use that account specifically for all online purchases.

 

[mommyofdoom]

Correction... I was hit.

I just received an email from my bank stating that my card had been automatically cancelled due to attempted fraudulent activity. They're mailing me a new card.

I checked my statements again, I don't see anything on my end so I guess they nipped it in the bud. Thankfully.

The only order I placed online this month was with AVE. I'm happy that AVE is handling everything properly, and I'm happy that my bank was able to catch it in time.

 

[cags]

I use "ShopSafe", a feature of my CC that allows me to create a one-time CC number with an upper limit of my choosing and an expiration of between 2 to 12 months. I get a new number each time I make an on-line order and add a couple dollars above the actual costs and leave the expiration time at the default 2 months. This is a free service from my CC company so it doesn't cost me anything.

I have been using "virtual credit card numbers" (what my credit card co. calls them) for a year. I love it. no worries, the number can only be used once. it takes a few minutes to get the virtual # but is well worth it. and I don't believe it is the vendors, they don't see your number, it is the CC processor they use, and vendors have a hard time finding a processor
(I'm no expert, this is the info I have seen here on the forum, this is not a new problem)
and PS we had our number stolen, but it was not online, we believe it was in a restaurant.