<p>I wanted to remind everyone in this holiday season to be extra careful of their credit card and debit card accounts. In the span of less than a month, we had a fraudulent charge of $4.97 made to our credit card. We called our credit card company, and we are in the process of having it reviewed and removed. We were given a new account number.</p>
<p>This evening our oldest DD called to say that 2 withdrawals were made using a copied debit card. They totaled over $500. The withdrawals were made in California, but my daughter and her husband live in Florida. She checked her account this morning, but when they went to use their debit card at dinner, the transaction was denied because of insufficient funds. Needless to say they are upset. Fortunately, the account is with USAA, so they are confident that the money will be replaced in a couple of days. They have no idea how the account was compromised. </p>
<p>So, everyone please be more watchful than usual. There are not nice people out there.</p>
<p>I check my accounts daily all year round. My parents have had multiple credit card issues and my sister recently as well. Actually, my sister had debit card fraud over the summer… My parents gave her a stern talking to on using her debit card to shop with because if someone gets those numbers it will take your tangible money right from your accounts and possibly leave you with none… and you are out the money while they are straightening it out… whereas if they get your credit card numbers and charge to it it’s usually easier to clean up and doesn’t have an immediate impact on your actual money which gives you some time to get it straightened out while you still have your money in your bank accounts.</p>
<p>I don’t use my debit cards for anything other then withdrawing money at my banks ATM. Other then that, I charge everything to my actual CC and pay it off at the end of each month.</p>
<p>Our daughter has a pretty neat deal on her debit card. She gets a text message everytime she uses it. It serves two purposes. She puts her charges in Quicken when she gets home and they are all in one place, plus, if she gets a text message that she has charged something and she knows she did not authorize it, she can stop the damage immediately.</p>
<p>I’m impressed that you would be so on top of a $4.97 charge-I doubt that I would catch that unless it was made somewhere I NEVER shop, like KFC or something like that.</p>
<p>Several months after staying at a hotel on my daughter’s college campus, Citibank denied a charge DH was trying to make. When he called to inquire about it, they asked him if his wife was traveling in Egypt. No…well, it turns out that several hotel groups had their databases raided and anyone who stayed in one of those hotels during that time period had their credit card info stolen. These people started out making small charges on my card and graduated in a few days into charging $1000 items. Really annoying.</p>
<p>There was actually a great scam some guys figured out a while ago where if you only charge a dollar or so most people will miss the charge (I think it was something like a 7% contest rate), but if you steal a few million credit cards you can easily clear a ton of money.</p>
<p>Another problem I ran into recently had to do with subscription services. I thought my subscription would end when my credit card expired. Apparently companies now have the ability to get your new expiration dates and will continue to bill you. This particular company, Angie’s List, sent me several messages about an expired credit card number, so I was really shocked to learn that I was still being billed for their services.</p>
<p>Momofsongbird, you really can’t even feel safe using the ATM machine. We had several thousand dollars taken out of our account as a result of an atm machine withdrawal. According to the bank and the police, scammers have been known to attach small cameras to the atm machine and devices on the scanning portion. They make a new card with your information and have your passcode. I generally check my account frequently, almost daily, but this happened over a holiday weekend when I was occupied with other things. Fortunately, the bank did reimburse us eventually after several weeks.</p>
<p>My husband recently had his debit card counterfeited and used - first to fill someone’s gas tank and then to draw out $500 in cash. The day before, he had used a random (Chase) ATM at the San Francisco Airport that didn’t work; our guess is that it had been interfered with so someone could pick up the card and pin numbers.</p>
<p>The transaction was caught by the fraud people within a day, probably because it fit a common pattern of theft. It took three days to get a provisional credit on our account.</p>
<p>With a credit card, I haven’t had theft but I have had a purchase with a company that didn’t deliver the goods, and it took at least two months to get a credit on our account. Different experience, but that left me feeling that debit card problems are easier to deal with than credit card problems.</p>