…for credit card companies.
That’s the first time I’ve ever said that.
Last week I got a recorded message from our credit card company, which normally I would ignore. But I listened and it asked me to verify if I had used my credit card earlier the same day (it was 9 a.m.) to make a $3 purchase somewhere in Mexico.
Um, no.
So I was transferred to a Fraud Specialist (cool title) who told me there were actually two charges on the card from Mexico, one for $3 and one for $1. She said that fraudsters usually make a few small purchases first to check the card’s authenticity before really going for it. The company immediately canceled the card and issued us a new number.
I know the credit card company keeps on top of these things to save their own legal behind, but I was really grateful they caught this so fast.
Whenever we order something online we use our credit card’s online “ShopSafe” feature that issues a number specifically for our purchase and keeps our real number protected. I’m not sure how our number got stolen. But it was a bit of a reality check for us.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Do you think your credit card number was borrowed while you were on vacation there? Oh, and where do you get ShopSafe? Is it a service that anyone can use?
December 19th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
wow. that bites. I hope you don’t have to pay those $4.
but at least they caught it before big purchases were made. I haven’t heard of ShopSafe, I’ll have to do a search for that.