Credit Card fraud

[riddler 0]

So I got this new credit card in the mail about three weeks ago. It will eventually replace the American Express card I've had for years, but AMEX decided to bump my interest rate way up. Anyway, I went and got food at a restaurant on Monday night - right before they closed.

Tuesday late afternoon I couldn't find my credit card. I thought hard about it, and realized that when I paid the guy at the restaurant, he never gave the credit card back. So I called the restaurant and asked if they found my credit card. I talked to a manager and he said no.

So I called the credit card company and asked about it - they had already put the credit card on hold. Seems Tuesday morning, someone went and filled up their gas tank. Then they went to Walmart at 9 AM and put $3,200 charge on the card. Then they went to a jewelry store and tried twice to put a $5,000 charge on it. The credit card company froze the account at that point.

Rats

Well, the credit card company is handling it, and it'll be a few weeks before I get a new card, and a month or so until I get the $3,200 Walmart charge removed. They said they don't prosecute, so if I wanted I had the option of calling the police

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[NWFlyer 2]

This might also be a good time to get in touch with the credit reporting agencies and put a fraud alert on your credit report. Sounds like a one-time thing that your credit card company has under control, but better safe than sorry.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[pincheck 0]

damned right you should call the police at the very least you will then have a record of the crime, which could cover you for any problems that creep up later.

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[unformed 0]

fuck man, that sucks. ... i'd call the police though ... especially since you know exactly where it happened....

get that bastard in jail.

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[loumeinhart 0]

yea that sucks, file a police report, you can probably do it over the phone. ......what erks me is the media would say "It's IDENTITY THEFT!!. riddler's IDENTITY was stolen!!!"

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

They said they don't prosecute, so if I wanted I had the option of calling the police

And here is the second biggest problem (after how easy it is to get credit with other people's info) - the credit card companies are content to just write off the loss, and use it to justify charging 21% if you're a couple days late one month. You, otoh, can suffer much more from this sort of crime.

Somewhere down the road there's going to be substantial legislation to right this imbalance.

[Nightingale 0]

Fraud flags on credit reports are a pain in the ass.

What they don't tell you:

1. it makes it harder to get credit approval, because you have to supply additional documentation for someone to extend credit to you.

2. you will pretty much never get approved for a store credit card on the spot. They always get that embarrasing response of "we'll notify you by mail" and of course, they send you a letter asking for more info, you give it to them, and a month later, you have your card. So, you can't take advantage of those 10% off offers when you sign up for a card.

3. Some companies will deny you credit outright. Some apartment complexes will refuse to lease to you, because their automatic credit systems will issue a denial if there's any kind of flag on the report, regardless of what kind.

4. It's impossible to remove it. You can place it on your account via an automated phone service, but to remove it, you have to first off manage to talk to a person, which is impossible, and if you happen to get in touch with someone, you have to supply all kinds of crazy documents (one company wanted bills from two different utility companies, and I've only got one utility that I have to pay for).

Putting a fraud flag on my credit report eight years ago has been a HUGE hassle for me. In my case, it was necessary, because someone had my social security number, birthday, and name, because it was someone at school who had stolen records from the school database, so they actually had the info to open new accounts. If it's just a stolen credit card, the thief doesn't have the necessary info to open new accounts, so a fraud flag won't help the situation.

[NWFlyer 2]

Thanks for the details, Kris, I didn't know all that. Sounds like it might be going too far for this circumstance.