Scams You've Encountered

Yesterday a call came in on landline. it asked for me by first name, background noise sounded like call was coming from call center, then call got cut off. When I typed in number online to see where it was coming from, nomorobo said it came from a women’s prison. My wife at first wanted to know what I’m doing in my spare time. Then we both laughed, well I think my wife was laughing.

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I got a call the other day from Eugene, OR. Since my DH has some relatives in the area (I think), I answered. The person said “may I ask the name of the person I am speaking to?” at which point I immediately hung up. Then the next day I got a call from Prineville,OR , which I sent immediately to VM (and of course they did not leave a message).

LOL - You got me laughing.

Arggh! One of my replaced cards is compromised! A pox on citicard who won’t expedite a card a second time so the new card will arrive by regular mail (hopefully!) while we are traveling. Thank heavens my neighbor will take in our mail.

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They put the card in their Apple pay account and tried to charge in Korea. Ugh! Fortunately the charges are small and will eventually be removed. But still…

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Ugh, it’s such a time suck.

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These things always seem to happen right before a trip, right? Younger S thought his card was compromised 2 days before they were to leave the country. I’m not 100% sure it was, but good to be safe, but a royal PITA anyway. Good thing he was still an authorized user on my USAA card, because his other card is Discover which isn’t always taken outside the US.

Citibank was the company that eventually told H to just cancel and go elsewhere after 20 years. His card just kept getting compromised over and over. It would be compromised before we even activated it. They couldn’t figure it out. But it was sort of funny. Whoever was doing it sometimes had stuff shipped to our house. Weird random things. Blank notecards with bible verses on it, a book about learning Computers for Dummies…

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This one that got compromised again is also a Citicard. I hope they don’t make me cancel forever as I need it for Costco.

You can get a non credit card Costco membership card and just use your preferred Visa to pay. You do not need to pay with their card.

Hopefully not, but his was compromised like 12 times in a row. And they didn’t make him change. They suggested it. This was also 15ish year ago, before we had nice text alerts to let us know immediately any time it was used.

Not a scam, but I would NOT recommend Capital One for credit cards. Yes, their no foreign transaction fees are nice, but they unilaterally cut my credit limit by two-thirds when COVID hit just because they had many people (not us) missing payments.

I pled my case to no avail. I guess that explains why most credit card applications take a few days to receive approval, but Cap One takes 5 minutes!! They’ll apparently give credit to anybody, and those of us who pay on time have to suffer because of the deadbeats.

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I’m absolutely gutted by the proposed Capital One / Discover Card takeover, because Discover Card has the best customer service I’ve ever experienced, and I want absolutely nothing to do with CO which I’m sure will trash it.

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We’ve had Capital One since 1999 and I love it. Their customer service has been great and I like the rewards. Our credit limit has never been cut. :slight_smile:

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it is my only visa card. i really dont want another card!

I recently had my USAA debit card fraudulently used so reported, charged back and replacement in the mail and less than 1 week later my USAA Visa card fraudulently used - again, charged back and card replaced. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how this could happen or where I had used both cards at the same place. Then I read the article linked below. Very surprised…I have very complicated, non-relatable passwords. I always thought it was odd that when I called into USAA they would ask for my PIN to verify my identification - once they have it, they have it. I immediately change it now. Also, still not a fan of any kind of voice automated identification - will not do that anywhere. Check your transactions every night if you can on your cards, even those you don’t use - if not every night as often as you can. My husband is a hawk on monitoring, thank goodness. We’ve had our credit frozen for at least 20 years and only unfreeze if need a large purchase that will check credit. Stay vigilant! MSN

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I have a routine I keep every morning while I eat breakfast. I read the 2 local and regional newspapers (digital), check my e-mail, check in on FB (it’s a “family only” account), and one by one, I check every credit card, and 2 different bank accounts. Every. Morning. Without fail. It scares me to do it when I travel because I really don’t know how secure the wi-fi is wherever I am, but I still do it.

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My husband checks every night - I so appreciate it being important to him. We work too hard for our money and getting harder to make any more with me retired and him about to be. That is a fantastic habit you have - I sent the article to my kids as they all use USAA for main checking as well but most of us have other credit union savings accounts and retirement accounts with other orgs as well…check everything, everywhere. Still…scary stuff out there.

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I closed a Visa card through a local department store that I never used for that reason. It had fraudulent charges on it at some point and thank goodness I still got paper bills, because otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed or paid it. The balance was always $0 except once every 18-24 months when I’d buy something and pay it off immediately.

But all of my other cards and my main bank give me text alerts and/or phone notifications any time it’s used.

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If it can be done through a browser, don’t download the app.

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My kids told me never to use the Facebook app on mobile phone - I just go to Facebook.com through Safari when on my phone. I try never to do any finance stuff from a mobile app, but other things, it’s kind of hard not to, especially when traveling. Most (or all, not sure) of my apps say don’t track unless using the app, and some I don’t want tracking at all if it’s not necessary. Walmart want’s to know when I’ll get there to pick up my groceries so it wants a check in and it tracks my drive. I turned that off one day and just checked in when I got there but had to wait 10 minutes for them to get stuff together (even though it was ready) to bring it out to my car…that’s okay, I can wait. Medical office apps are a pain and it seems almost everyone of mine use a different app and want me to check in online, which is really just updating my info, not actual check in so I do that from home now as well.

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