On Saturday 24 March 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:
I have stopped using credit cards.
Some one duplicated my late father credit card and stole us 1200 Eur in two days, the maximum for the card. The bank refused to return the money back and we had to fight for it for months, and we only got about 60% back (we did not want to go to court).
Well we had a similar incident this very week. But to show you the difference between banks and card companies, the first person to spot fraudulent use of our card was the credit card company. They called us, can informed us the card number was used fraudulently in different places, and they had canceled the card and we would have a new one by express delivery the next day. We were stuck with no charges at all. Their computers detected unusual buying practices, and kicked it out for review by humans. Scarry to some I suppose. The particular Fraudster scam that was done goes something like this... Somehow get the card number and name/address and three digit code, probably by breaking into some on-line web site where a legitimate purchase was made... Visit a Best-Buy web site, and order a bunch of stuff, then check the box saying you will pick it up at so-and-such branch. So-and-such branch do not check that carefully, and deliver the goods to anyone having the print out of the on-line receipt that matches their computerized order. Best Buy is being heavily leaned on to dis-continue this practice but so far they think its worth it to them to eat the fraud loss. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen