Heat

So I just got a call from my credit card, I figured it was because I started using this card pretty heavily lately but the lady was going through the charges and there was a charge for $122 from some company called meetic, which is apparently an online dating service.

The card is now blocked and a new card will be issued.

Over the past week I had used this card for:

Gas a week ago ($40), pay at the pump. Then between yesterday and today I bought some food at a grocery store for $48 (swiped it in their machine), Wal-Mart checks for $23 (online), and buy.com for $40 online (Miami Vice 5-Season box-set).

My machine was my work machine which I'm sure is secure, it must have been the supermarket.

HN

ever bought from monoprice.com? they were compromised recently

Deftones

just because you used it recently, doesn't mean any of those places got hacked or were hit. sometimes cards just get compromised.

Deftones

but from what i read, it was only cards that were linked to paypal if you used paypal to purchase.

twikoff

how does that work, since monoprice would never receive any info about your credit card?

when i use a cc to make a purchase through paypal, it normally charges my card to paypal, and then paypal to the seller.

GMan2819

That's not correct. They are not currently accepting CC as form of payment while they investigate a potential security leak. Paypal and Google checkout are still being accepted.

This was posted on their site on 3/12/2010:

Deftones

You sure it's not correct? This post and ensuing article from consumerist seem to indicate they were related.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/10043423-post3.html

GMan2819

Monoprice seems convinced it's not a paypal issue otherwise they would've stopped accepting it. Anything is possible, I guess. On Monoprice's Facebook page, quite a few people complaining about unauthorized CC charges.

emanon

A big selling point of using Paypal/Google checkout is that the merchant never sees your CC info.

jfoobar

Could have been the pay at the pump. There have been a few gas pump skimmer rings busted in the past year or so. For every one that is caught, it is a fairly safe bet there are several that are not.

Deftones

of course. but several people have indicated on that site that the card that was compromised was only used for Paypal. seems like too much of a coincidence to me.

mkdevo

wow. i didn't know about this. possibly explains my recent hijack.

placed 3 orders at monoprice in feb. then on 3/8 there was a fraudulent charge of $1700+ from avon.com (what the HELL do you buy for $1700 at avon?!). luckily it's actually a debit card, and was about $700 more than what i had in the bank. it was a pending charge for 4 days and i had no money available to me during that time, but that was it. after day 4, the pending charge went away (the order never actually went through) and that was that.

needless to say, i cancelled the card.

oh, and i didn't use paypal at monoprice, fwiw.

D.Pham5GLTE (>60GB)

if you have any pending items you purchased or any auto-pays to the CC, make sure to give them a new CC.

FiveO

I'm dealing with a baffling case now...working on trying to link a southern Minnesota victim to his CC being used in Miami, FL about 2 months ago. Slowly...but I'll get it I'm sure.


About 2 years ago I had a CC case with a 85 year old victim in my area...the only thing she ever did was buy medication with it over the phone. The CC was used in West Virginia and Virgina of all places..furniture purchases, used to pay a energy bill (electric, etc) and a car payment. After about 2 weeks of subpoena's and digging... I found out that the medication company, which was in Kansas City, KS, had a "call center" in WV and VA. The phone operator had stolen her CC info and used it for $6,500 total.

I passed the info onto her local PD in VA and they did a search warrant on her place and got her convicted in their area. Resitution to the CC company.


Sometimes is all about luck...for the most part...stuff can be tracked. IP addresses, bills, etc.

Living Dead

Good job. I wish all these bastards could be caught so efficiently.

Heat

I have never bought from monoprice, and there was no skimmer at the gas pump (I would have noticed it). Which means that it was either the grocery store, or my work computer has been compromised.

One odd thing when I used the credit card at the grocery store, the guy said I didn't have to sign for it since it was under $50. I'll call them tomorrow to see if that's really their policy. A different grocery store that I normally use for larger purchases has a policy of no signature needed for purchases under $25, so the $50 policy is possible.

Trevor

This is legit. Every company has a different threshold over which you must sign. I've seen $50 and and $25.

WallyOPD

How can you be so sure?

jfoobar

He can't. That's the whole point of these skimmers is that they look very, very real, so that even the gas station employees don't notice. Probably a moot point though. The most likely explanation is some vendor database with his CC in it, possibly even from a year ago or more, got popped or sucked dry by an insider.

Deftones

Again, just because you used your card somewhere recently, doesn't mean it was compromised at one of those specific places. Cards get compromised all the time and it has nothing to do with where you used it recently.

This.

foxdvd

having had my credit card number stolen twice, back when all of us Hong Kong nuts were importing dvds from sites that I am sure were ran out of some guys basement, one thing I always get upset about is that you never get any followup on if the person that took the number is caught.....it is nice to hear sometimes they are...

Dr Mabuse

May I suggest using your night stick, officer?

The only secure system is one that is turned off, unplugged from everything, and utterly destroyed in an explosion.

Heat

It's too much of a coincidence. In the past couple years I've used this card maybe five times, and at gas stations, I use a different credit card on a regular basis. But I had some unexpected expenses this past month and was going to be carrying a balance on my primary credit card so I started using my secondary card.

I used it four times after years of extremely low activity and suddenly there's a fraudulent charge on it. It's got to be the grocery store.

Deftones

ok, don't listen to reason or common sense.

Abob Teff

It was probably the guy that you sniped your house from ... 8-)

Which grocery store?