<p>My bank called this morning to let me know thousands of dollars of purchases have been attempted on my credit card in the U.K. The bank denied the charges, closed the account, and issued me a new card. This is a credit card I only use if a business doesn’t accept American Express. I used it twice yesterday, at local greenhouses. Other than that, I only use it once or twice each month. Do you think one of the greenhouses is to blame or is there no way to ever know how it was stolen?</p>
<p>No, there is no way to tell.</p>
<p>It might have been someone at the greenhouse. It might have been a hacker that hacked into the greenhouse. It might have been a bad character at the company that processes the credit cards for the greenhouse. It might have been someone that dived through your recycling bin and got your statement. It might have been someone that randomly guessed at credit card numbers and found one that worked.</p>
<p>etc, etc, etc…it could be a ton of possibilities.</p>
<p>I always shred my statement once I’ve paid it.</p>
<p>Your credit card company may be able to figure it out because they can look for commonalities among fraudulent charges from multiple people.</p>
<p>I would tend to doubt it is an employee at the greenhouse, but it is certainly possible their systems have been hacked. Way bigger companies than that have been compromised.</p>
<p>If you feel like following up you could call the store manager and ask some pointed question like “is my credit card number stored unencrypted anywhere on your systems”? Maybe you’ll get an answer.</p>
<p>I called both greenhouses but got the, “It couldn’t possibly have come from here” response. You’d think credit card companies would have the best chance of figuring out, but they don’t seem to care. They seem to be o.k. with just denying purchases and re-opening accounts.</p>
<p>My experience (as a victim and a lawyer) is that it is extremely difficult to tell who stole the number and, frankly, the card companies don’t seem to care. I pretty much solved one of my thefts once and no one was the least bit interested.</p>
<p>Hmmm … someone attempted purchases in the UK. It sounds more like it was stolen from cyberspace then a printed document. It could be whatever system the greenhouses are hooked up to or maybe it wasn’t stolen recently and the greenhouses aren’t involved.</p>
<p>Our number was stolen and was only used for a few things so it was three months before I realized it was stolen. We’re pretty sure it was from something I purchased on line but we don’t know for sure. (I shop on line a lot.)</p>
<p>They don’t seem to care who got it, and they don’t seem to prosecute. I had someone once hack into my checking account and pay some of her bills out of my account. Lng story short, we were not only able to find out who it was, but one of the companies whe paid her bill with my account had a TAPE RECORDING of her authorizing payment of her bill with my account. Guess what. Even with that and a police/sheriff report, the police in her home town, who confirmed that she was a crook, could not have cared less. They had bigger fish to fry. So they claimed.</p>
<p>Also had someone steal my credit info and ordered international cellphones through one of the major carriers. Get this. They (in their fraud dept) ultimately admitted that they knew it was fraudulent, but they told me that the sales person gets credit for the sale so allowed it to go through!! Seriously???</p>
<p>I knew this “scimming” happened with ATMs,but now it looks like gas stations are the next target.</p>
<p>[How</a> scammers can steal your credit card information at the gas pump - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57434875/how-scammers-can-steal-your-credit-card-information-at-the-gas-pump/?tag=re1]How”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57434875/how-scammers-can-steal-your-credit-card-information-at-the-gas-pump/?tag=re1).</p>
<p>The only thing we can do is be vigilant in checking our credit card statements. I’ve had good luck with my credit card companies calling for any oddball purchases, so I do think they care, somewhat. It’s just too hard to prosecute, but they try to keep it from happening at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>The reason the credit card companies don’t seem to care is because they don’t care. It’s cheaper for them to close an account and absorb the fraud than to track it down. Stolen credit cards are unfortunately pretty common, and it would take an army to trace all of them.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s a better way to go about it. The technology exists to better protect our cards, and it’s widely used in the rest of the developed world: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://usa-banks.us/business-articles/consumer-reports-warns-america’s-credit-cards-“surprisingly-vulnerable”-to-fraud[/url]”>http://usa-banks.us/business-articles/consumer-reports-warns-america’s-credit-cards-“surprisingly-vulnerable”-to-fraud</a></p>
<p>2 suggestions. First, go to eStatements only. Paper statements invite fraud. Second, have a pro run virus and Trojan scans on your PC. And by pro I mean a local independent I/T guy. Do NOT go to Best Buy or Staples to have this done.</p>
<p>^^ How does one go about finding a trustworthy local independent IT guy?</p>