credit card fraud- again

Last month my main business debit card got hit for 3341.00 in fraudulent charges for high end audio equipment purchased in London. Today, I realized that my secondary account had been hit for 252.00 for Skype phone service charges. I use Skype for my international calls, so I did not immediately realize the charges were on the wrong account. All is being taken care of, but much time has been spent on phone calls and e-mails. The claims department person at Bank of America told me this is becoming more and more of a problem. Skype security says these guys are using random card generators and are buying lists of stolen numbers. Any suggestions on defenses against this crap? I have only lost time so far, but who knows what is next. Wifey says we should use PayPal for the security, but I;m not convinced. Whay say you, great Gurus of the Webs?

I've heard a lot of horror stories regarding PayPal, especially from the merchant standpoint.

Is it possible that your two accounts may have both been stolen at the same time? Trash divers or something?

Two accounts in the last month or so. Someone got your info. If you have any other cards put fraud alerts on them and change their numbers. That sucks. Good luck.

Ha ha, B of A....it almost always seem to involve B of A.

CASH?

I have one account/card/paypal I use for web purchases. And that account is usually empty until I need to make a purchase.

It's a PITA to put cash in it when I need to do online transactions, but it does mitigates electronic thievery.

Not likely to have been trash divers, as we shred everything. I use the main card for equipment purchases all over the country, so I see the possibility that somebody could have gotten the info that way. Scary thing is that I have credit card info from many clients that I could have a field day with if I chose to. The secondary account is mainly for receipt of wire transfers, not many purchases, so I will carefully go over those. I intend to change banks soon. BoA is just too hard to deal with, it takes forever to get to a live person on the phone. My local account rep does not answer her phone, and at least a half hour wait to see someone at the bank. The little bank where I have our personal accounts is different, like "Hi Chuck!" when I walk in the door. Problem is they are not really set up for international stuff. Gotta see if we can work around that.

Has there been a single source that you have both sent money to on the outgoing account and received money from on the incoming account? Like a returned equipment for credit or sold something to and bought something from a place? It is possible, of course, that both account escaped to the wild independantly, but I don't believe in coincidences.

BoA took over my mortgage from Countrywide. Oh, that sucked. Bad. Phone? Right. Put it on speakerphone and come back in an hour and you still won't be through.

Yeah, the little bank looks better all the time. Of course, two weeks after I move there they will be taken over by BoA! No, not really likely. I hope.

cwh wrote: Last month my main business debit card got hit for 3341.00 in fraudulent charges for high end audio equipment purchased in London. Today, I realized that my secondary account had been hit for 252.00 for Skype phone service charges. I use Skype for my international calls, so I did not immediately realize the charges were on the wrong account. All is being taken care of, but much time has been spent on phone calls and e-mails. The claims department person at Bank of America told me this is becoming more and more of a problem. Skype security says these guys are using random card generators and are buying lists of stolen numbers. Any suggestions on defenses against this crap? I have only lost time so far, but who knows what is next. Wifey says we should use PayPal for the security, but I;m not convinced. Whay say you, great Gurus of the Webs?

At least they bought GOOD audio with your stolen card. My sister in law had her card stolen, and all they bought was a crappy TV at Target.

The assumption is that they bought the product with the intent of returning it for cash. That transaction was reversed within hours of the purchase, so probably not successful. With the Skype purchases, somebody was spending a lot of time on long distance calls. Orchestrating new scams, I'm sure. Unfortunately, BoA will not share any details about who or where.

That seems janky. If it's a criminal case, and they've got the people involved, or have the information, fairly sure they're obligated to disclose that.

From what I understand, and could be wrong, prosecution is extremely rare. If it's overseas, as all of mine appear, the different jurisdictions aren't too interested in working on piddly stuff. A rather safe crime. Amusing, considering that I'm in the SECURITY business.

Just as a safe measure, get a current credit report. Take a look at your other accounts to see if anything is funky.

the best bet is to bottleneck your finances so you can shut the valve as needed.

Explain that, please.

I think madmallard is saying cut back on the number of cards etc that you use and put some safeguards in place. But I want to hear him say (quack? ) that.

My bottlenecks:

I change the password on my debit card every so often, on a random basis.

I have only one credit card, and I check it on a regular basis too, not just when the statement comes in. I have, in the past, used the credit card to pay for something where for whatever reason I wanted to restrict any access to my checking or savings and then paid the CC off immediately. Reason: if something weird happens and the CC number gets stolen then my day to day liquid cash won't be tied up.

A PayPal account which stays empty until I need to pay for something. I linked it to a small savings account, if I sell something the money goes into the savings account and is then immediately transferred to my checking or 'real' savings. Or if I am paying something, I stick the money in the faux savings before doing the PP. That way, if something screwy happens PP has no access to my 'real' accounts.

I also do not allow any type of automatic draft on my debit card or savings, although I do have my XM radio on my credit card and it's a backup payment for my PP account. Too many ways for that to turn ugly. Knock on wood, even with a comically common last name I haven't had any problems.

Be wary of Paypal. 2 weeks ago i got hit for $1097 in sales via itunes, though I've never used itunes before. Paypal did not inform me that itunes had been hacked and that 50,000+ email addresses and paypal info had been compromised. It took about a week of phone calls to get the money back, including bank fees for not having that much money in the account.

If it wasn't required by ebay sellers, I would have gotten rid of paypal by now.

Just put a limit on your card. All my cards call if there is a purchase made over 100.00. PayPal called me when someone bought something I normally would not buy. They didn't let the charge go through. I get most of my affiliate checks direct deposited into PayPal, So my balance is usually over 5k a month. No real problems thus far, but I also have a key fob thingy random code crap.