I got one call from a “Fraud Department”…I should have gotten two!
Last Saturday I got a call from the Capital One Fraud Department. They wanted to verify some unusual activity on my account.
That's never a good sign.
Sure enough, someone had gotten ahold of one of my card numbers and tried to use it to charge $277 and $57.
Card cancelled. No harm, no foul. Credit Card companies DO have their good sides!
This morning I got a call from a MERCHANT who wanted to verify a couple purchases I'd made through them.
I called back figuring it was the two charges caught by Capital One.
I was wrong. This was a Chase card. Huh.
I called Chase and had them cancel that card. Again, no harm, no foul but it does make me wonder where they got them from. I still had both cards in my possession.
The merchant wouldn't tell me where the SHIP TO address was but she confirmed they had the correct billing address.
No matter. It all worked out.
We can and do rail against the credit card companies for their less than fair practices but in cases like these it's nice to have them on our side.
Use this as a reminder to DAILY log into your credit card accounts and just look around...make sure everything is in order.
An ounce of prevention!
Based on Daisy's comment below I went to
https://www.experian.com/consumer/cac/FCRegistration.do?alertType=INITIAL_ALERT
and put a fraud alert on my credit report there which is automatically reported to the other two.
I then went to www.AnnualCreditReport.com and got my free credit reports to verify there were no accounts on there I wasn't aware of. All was good there.
Go check your accounts right now!
Hi Leo, I had this happen to me. It’s called ID theft. Don’t assume your problem is over. I would have a police report taken by your city police. And, check your credit report. When it happened to me, the thief took out MANY credit cards in my name with my social. I’m STILL fighting this and it’s been over ten years since it happened. Feel free to contact me in you’d like more info. I’ve got much more experience with this than I’d like.
Daisy
[Thanks Daisy! It doesn’t have that feel to me but in any case I just did file a fraud report with the three credit bureaus…actually just one and they all get the report. I also got a copy of my credit reports from http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com and everything looks good there. I appreciate the feedback-Leo]