Fraudulent Charges & Identity Theft

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I was busy working at my desk earlier in the week when I saw an email from American Express come in with the words Fraud Protection Alert in the subject line.  I knew this wasn’t going to be good.

When I opened it, I found this message, “For your security, we regularly monitor accounts for possible fraudulent activity. Please review the attempted charge below which occurred within minutes of the timestamp of this message.”

Fraud protection alert American Express notification

And then I proceeded to get four more similar emails.

Someone in Eastern Europe was trying to go on an online shopping spree with my Amex and tried five separate times to buy a variety of different items.

Luckily, Amex contacted me via email and by phone, I called them back and told them, no, that wasn’t me on any of the attempted charges, they sorted things out on their end, I am not responsible for any of the charges or attempted charges, and they cancelled my existing card and are sending a new one to me.

Whew. 

Fairly painless but it could have been a lot worse.

Case in point, about two years ago, Scott had fraudulent activity with his Visa Debit Card, but because it was a debit card and tied to his checking account rather than a true credit card, the rules for him being liable for those charges were different.  To compound matters, he didn’t notice the charges and suspicious activity until about 32 days after the fact since he’s not a daily bank account checker.  He just checks online once a month or so, travels frequently and is just a busy person who doesn’t login to his online banking very frequently.   However, with his bank, if you don’t report suspicious charges within 30 days, there’s really nothing they could do for him or were willing to do for him.  So he (we) were out a couple thousand dollars.  Sigh.

In his case, there were no calls, no emails saying hey, we think this charge of $2000 from a Romanian brothel may be suspicious.  Nope.  The bank processed the charge and because there was enough money in his checking account to cover the charge, it went through.

I give Amex their props because they were all.over.it. with contacting me and making the situation was painless as possible for me and I wouldn’t have been liable for any charges even if they had gone through.

However, it does scare me that we all live in this very virtual, online world where numbers and keystrokes are all we have and how easy someone else can have them, too.

Ironically, this happened on the same day I thought my blog was hacked.

Desktop mac with blog on its front page

Turns out, it wasn’t hacked, and was a server failure, but the panic level was the same and reinforced how tied we all are to technology.  One glitch, one snag, one server decides to have a hiccup, and worlds come to a crashing halt with lots of sweaty palms and white knuckles and ohmygods later.

Another thing that scares me is all the “fake” accounts out there.  Fake Twitter accounts, fake email accounts, fake Facebook pages; people pretending to be or trying to impersonate someone else.

Identity theft is such a huge problem and I’ve read stories about people having their lives essentially ruined because someone stole their identity.  Their bank accounts drained, crimes committed using another person’s name or identity, fraudulent shopping sprees, credit cards opened in the name of someone else, mortgages taken out in other people’s name, using another person’s social security number, it goes on and on.

It’s a horrible, horrific problem and it’s much easier for the criminals to do these things, often which take seconds or hours to do, but can take years to un-do.  And sometimes, it’s not ever really un-done.

For example, if someone opens 17 credit cards in your name and with your social security number, maxes them out, and never makes the payments on them, that is all still going to show up on your credit report.  From the amount of cards opened to the credit lines being maxed to no payments ever made on any of it.  Default city.

You may not be financially liable for it, but you will spend thousands of hours of your time and precious energy trying to clear your good name and credit.  Unfortunately, your credit score will be adversely effected for some time, which can compromise your ability to do everything from buying a house to opening a credit card legitimately, or even getting a job because yes, prospective employers in many cases now run credit checks on prospective employees and if you show up with a bad Fico score, through no fault of your own, you can likely kiss that job goodbye.  Sad and harsh, but true.

And that’s just one little example of the ways in which Identity Theft can change and ruin lives.   It gets me so riled up to think about crimes like this and what it means for the person who has it happen to them!

On lighter matters, after fraudulent charges snafu, it was time for chocolate.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge squares

When the going gets tough, the tough eat chocolate

And it’s the easiest fudge ever.  Just turn on your microwave and melt a couple things together and you’re set.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge squares

Questions:

1. Have you ever had any fraudulent charges or fraudulent activity on any of your accounts?  What happened?  How did you find out about it and were you financially responsible for any of the charges?

2. Have you ever had your identity compromised?  Have you been the victim of identity theft or known anyone who has?

It’s such a horrible, awful problem.  I shudder to think about it, actually.

There are so many websites out there with tips on what to do and also ways to prevent things from happening but really, it seems in many ways, that we are at the mercy of others.

As my grandma used to say, not everyone in this world has good intentions.   And unfortunately where there’s a will, there’s a way (for both positive and negative things).

Sadly, if a criminal wants to steal your identity, he or she probably could.  But there are things we can do in an attempt to prevent it and to try to make it more difficult for them.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories on this.  Hopefully sharing tips and bringing awareness to these things makes us all a bit safer.

P.S. Thanks for the Manna Bread Giveaway entries

 

About the Author

Welcome to AverieCooks! Here you’ll find fast and easy recipes that taste amazing and are geared for real life. Nothing fussy or complicated, just awesome tasting dishes everyone loves!

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Comments

  1. Luckily in Canada, we are not responsible for any fraudulent credit card activity. My credit card company also will call me any time the spending on my credit card seems unusual for me.

  2. Amex is on point and so is BOA even though I dislike doing business with them both (that’s another story!). Both my husband and I have received email messages similar to yours although not as far a Europe! It is scary just how tied we are to technology and that’s there’s no easy way to clear your name once your identity has been stolen.

  3. Thanks for bringing up such a relevant topic!!
    I am sooo glad they contacted you! I wish all banks would do that…
    Fortunately things like that never happened to me (knocks on wood).

  4. How awesome of AmEx to be proactive about such things. Financial matters are scary without worries of identity theft, so in today’s world those things are just added fears. I will take chocolate any day though :)

  5. Just last Christmas someone tried to hack Jason’s bank card. When he tried to use it all he got was a message to call the bank. Someone had tried to take $1000 from his account! They cancelled his card and issued a new one and he wasn’t responsible to the $$. What a pain in the ass, but better than what happened to Scott!!

  6. Last year, two days before Christmas I got a phone call from Mastercard saying my card had been compromised, and was closed. Bad time for a credit card to be closed! I was out of town, away from home for the next two weeks. I got them to overnight me a new card, which really took four days, since it was the holiday.

    And then a few weeks ago, my amazon account was truly hacked. Not as big a deal, but a HUGE pain in the ass. Since my credit card was linked to the account, I had several hundered dollars worth of charges. That sucked. I had to create a whole new acct, lost all my informaiton, including my wish list, which was FULL of stuff! And my affiliate acct, etc. Not fun.

  7. OMG, I am so sorry that all that happened to you. When you said your blog was hacked and all that you had lost, my heart immediately broke for you, because I know exactly what you mean! I lost a ton of pics about 3 years ago and I was devastated by it.

    Ironically, I have the same type of credit protection with my credit card and I have had some alerts when it wasn’t fraudulent. For example, last year I was in Ny, Philly, Ny, Detroit and bought a very expensive electronic in Detroit, and the credit card shut down in Detroit for said purchase. I don’t travel like that (3 cities in a weeks time), so I’m glad it caught it, but it was a nuisance at the time.

  8. We are big Amex fans here for that reason. My brother once booked plane tickets on his when he usually doesn’t make big purchases like that, and they temporarily suspended his account (he was in France at the time). But hey, it looked suspicious and it was better to be safe than sorry! All he had to do was confirm that yes, he did book those tickets on purpose and he was good to go.

  9. Averie you poor thing!! What a DRAG! Ugh. People should just be honest and work like the rest of us do to make money!!!
    Luckily, I’ve never run into fraudulent charges.

  10. Ah, I’m so glad things are clearing up! You are going into more detail about the very things that I was mentioning in my comment yesterday (even the cheer-up chocolate) :) –I’m glad that you’re addressing it, as it really is something people need to know about.

    Props to AmEx–that’s pretty awesome vigilance on their part–and yours!

  11. ugh. i had my wallet stolen sophomore year of college. at that time, illinois printed social security numbers on licenses. whoever stole the wallet used my ss# to drain both of my checking accounts, max out my visa, and attempt to obtain a loan before we realized it. talk about a nightmare.

  12. Wow, so glad AMEX is on it! I saw this an though “Oh man, hacked and identity theft in the same week? Averie needs some good vibes!” I haven’t had experiences with identity theft, but I know it can wreak havoc on your life, finances, credit etc. Hope everything turns out ok!