Credit Card number stolen
 

My credit card information was stolen from the Circle K gas station pump on March 30. This is the Circle K at 466a on the Lowes/Publix side of the road.

I used the "tap" feature - where you hold the card next to the black box with the tiny green lights that light up when your card communicates with the pump. Previously I thought this method was safer than inserting the card into a slot.

Thank goodness I get an alert every time the credit card is used. April 1 at 6:48am the card was used to charge $170 at Country Inn and Suites. This is clearly a fraudulent charge. I called the card issuer and canceled the card.

So be careful out there the crookes seem to be smarter every day.

If that’s your first time you’re fortunate. It has happened to us several times. Good luck.

I seriously doubt they got your card information there.

Contactless cards: How safe are they? (EMV security)

I agree. According to several articles on contactless cards:

"Contactless cards don’t transmit your name, card number, or three-digit security code."

The crooks got mine at the exact same place, but I did use the slider function.

Make sure when they reissue a new card, they give you a new number.

How do you determine where the card information was stolen? Do the police or the credit card company say, "yes, you are right, it was stolen from the Circle K?"

There are any number of ways the information can be stolen including anyplace you have used the card since the last time it was issued. Just because the fraud occurred today doesn't mean it was stolen yesterday or this morning.

We had card numbers "stolen" for cards that never left our wallets, it turns out the bad guys use random number generators and submit to websites when they get a hit, then they start using the number for purchases.

Thanks for sharing this resource.

My new credit/debit card has no information apart from name showing at all. Just a plain card.
Contactless is near bullet proof. Very hard to copy or duplicate. (Not impossible though!)

I prefer tap to pay using my iphone wherever possible. But I have found that gas stations often have do not have tap to pay enabled and only accept swipe. So I swipe. But I have email alerts setup for all card transactions … so i always am notified immediately when there is a fraudulent transaction, which seems to happen about twice per year. But I have never lost money … its just a hassle to call the bank and fix things.

There is also restaurants that like to take your card from you at your table and then disappear for 10 minutes to process payment. I scratched the 3 digit code off the back of my card so its impossible for the restaurant employee to obtain my 3 digit code. Of course, i need to store the 3 digit code somewhere else, so i have it when needed.

I’m thinking may need to go back to using cash again - especially at gas stations.

They try to use the card quickly, they get 1 or 2 charges. So it’s usually the last 1 or 2 days of places you used it.

Not sure why they used it at a country in and suites

Mine was my backup card (Discover) when I had left my main one (MasterCard) at home on the table after buying from Amazon. It was the one and only time I used that card in more than 6 months, and the next day phantom charge started piling up until the card issuer fraud system kicked in and called me.

Never a doubt as to where the number was stolen.

Think that's bad?

Someone at Chase Bank created their own Debit Card on my bank account and then ran up $4,000 in small charges at Amazon (apparently the only place that accepts an UNACTIVATED debit card with NO PIN).

How do I know it was someone at Chase? I don't. But who else would bother to make one small charge, wait 90 days (until the Chase liability window closed), and then start hitting Amazon three times a day for a year? Who else would have access to the account, to know that it was a small business account used almost exclusively for doing business as an Amazon seller, where they knew the charges would go unnoticed for months?

Chase even admitted that they paid the charges on a card that had NEVER BEEN ACTIVATED. They still refused to repay the $4,000 in fraudulent charges that they should never have allowed in the first place.

I had 133 Amazon order numbers against my card but Amazon refused to reveal the name or address of the thief to anyone except law enforcement. So I called the Marion County Sheriff. I had a Lieutenant literally refuse to even call to get the name, claiming it was out of their jurisdiction. I said I at least needed a police report for my identity theft policy. So two cops stood in my livingroom and acted like I was putting them out to write a police report; like it was my fault that someone created a fake debit card to steal my hard-earned cash. When I complained about their attitude, the head cop just closed his book and they walked out without even finishing the report. Then the identity theft policy company (Zander) reneged, claiming they didn't cover business accounts (which they didn't disclose or discover for months, until all other excuses for not paying ran out).

We live in a completely lawless society. You are at risk at all times. Nobody cares. I could also tell you about the time I found two burglars in the livingroom of my rental, stealing my TV. I called the Sumter County sheriff, and they refused to get involved because the burglars were the same people I'd just bought the place from, who used a key they were supposed to have turned in at the closing, to attempt to steal a TV clearly listed in the inventory.

I'm telling you, this isn't the same country we grew up in. Literally no one cares about crime anymore but the victims. The only thing saving any of us is that the ratio of crooks to citizens is still relatively low (unless you count all of your neighbors who scammed a free roof out of their insurance company, and thereby doubled your rate last year).