Credit Card Fraud Victim tells her Story
Almost everyone has a credit card these days. Infact almost everyone has multiple credit cards these days especially students. We blogged earlier showing you guys the best credit cards for students. But for many college students credit cards may be in too many places, and the future can include high debt that cripples credit ratings and erases eligibility for loans.
Credit card company data shows more students possess credit cards than at any other time in history, and students are using their credit cards with increasing frequency. These are the days of 0% credit cards offering 0% balance transfers. That’s good for everyone: students gain convenience, the credit card companies build future customer bases and merchants sell more goods and services. But both sides also have a lot to lose if the students who spend, spend, spend today are unable to pay, pay, pay tomorrow.
But we are going to talk about another serious issue today. Credit card fraud. We see headlines such as “13 People Indicted in New York City in $3 Million ID Theft Ring” , “Corporate Owner of T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s Says Information for 45.7 Million Cardholders Stolen” , “New Yorkers, Californians at Highest Risk for Identity Theft, Hundreds of Missing Passport Applications Found at Los Angeles Airport” , “Boeing Corporate Laptop Stolen; 382,000 Identities at Risk” and more everyday.
In this post we want to share with you a story of a fellow student, who tells us not about her problem with too many credit cards but another serious issue, credit card fraud … in her own words.
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!I go to College in Southern California. My parents live less than half an hour away so in general, I give out the mail address of my parents home as I am not very fond of using the small mail box I get on campus. So every weekend, when I go home to visit my parents, I see a whole bunch of mail nicely stacked up in the kitchen counter. As I began to sift through my mail consisting of the usual “crap” mail like credit card offers etc etc, my dad told me that besides these, I also received some packages.
I went to my room to check them out. I didn’t remember ordering anything such as books for my next semester or anything like that, but it was the weekend after Christmas .. so I figured I might have received some late arriving gifts. I eagerly opened the boxes trying to think which of my friends or cousins sent me something interesting. I opened the first box and it was an Anti-wrinkle cream. I was surprised. The next box contained 2 Sunscreen bottles. Hmm.. okay I don’t mind that. The third had a pink iPod … I was starting to get excited. Finally the last box contained weight loss pills. Now I know I might have gained couple extra pounds over the semester gourging on the McChicken Sandwitches on campus but sheessh. Imagine my surprise when I checked the receipts at the bottom of those boxes, the name me, the address me… the credit card … ME??
I immediately logged on to my bank online knowing that even a late night drinking spree wouldnt make me order such products. Sure enough, I see multiple transactions on my credit card. Well, so I start calling up all those companies of which purchases were made besides calling my credit card company. All the companies I called took off all the charges except the company from which I got the sunscreen lotion from where they took the purchase charges off but did not take off the charges for shipping.
It seems every order was placed on Christmas eve which I was told so that all these transactions would not raise any flags on my credit card. I also came to know that since each order required an email address, the person committing all these crimes set up different email addresses one for each of the purchases made and promptly deleted them after the confirmation email arrived from the company. As well as my credit card number, this person knew the security code on the back of the card, my home address, my cell phone number, my birth date and who knows what else.
This whole experience thoroughly shook me up. I started becomming suspicious of everyone including my room-mate and my close friends. I cancelled the credit card used. I started checking my bank activity multiple time a day.
Unable to figure out who would do this, I became suspicious of everybody. Even my son’s friends, whom I’ve known for years, became suspects. I started hiding my purse when they came over to visit. I canceled the credit card used and disputed all charges. I started checking my bank account activity several times a day. At the end of the day, since I had most of my money returned to me, it didn’t cost me a thing other than time and trouble and a growing lack of faith in anyone. The ease with which someone had access to all the critical information… made me spooky. With my credit card number in hand, what if they purchased some big ticket items like say a 50″ Plasma and ship it to say Mexico or some place. It could have been a case of “carding” or making small purchases to ensure the credit card would work on a later, larger purchase which thankfully never occurred.
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The ease of obtaining and abusing credit cards by young people is at an extremely critical stage. It isn’t just about financial ruins from ignorance or lack of financial responsibility, now were are talking about identity theft. Best practice: limit to 1 or 2 the number of credit cards that you have and use and monitor the account activity regularly.