Thursday, April 2, 2015

Numbers Game


Today we received one of those phone calls you really don’t want to get.

      It was from USAA, the company that provides our Master Cards. You guessed it – it was the fraud people calling to say there had been some suspicious activity on my husband’s card. I have to give USAA credit – somehow even though we Massachusetts residents were suddenly charging dinner at Bo’s Ribs in Florida two weeks ago, the only activity they thought was suspicious was at a Target in New York state. And they were right.

          No, my husband’s card never left his possession, but someone stole its number and manufactured one of their own. I wonder if they acquired the number with one of those pocket devices they warn us about on 60 Minutes. Fortunately, their process needs work because they were turned away at Target, MacDonald’s, and then an on-line company. None of the purchases were charged to his account and the card is now canceled.

          In the meantime, I guess I’ll re-purpose some aluminum foil from my anti-mind -control hat and use it to line my wallet. 


12 comments:

  1. I was at an art show, in another state, making a purchase in a vendor's booth, when my phone rang, just as the exhibitor was telling me my card was rejected. It was the first time I'd used it out of state. The credit card company was calling me. They were on it like a duck on a June bug. I proved who I was, made my purchase, and many more that day. I was not upset; I was happy to know the cardmasters were working it on the front end.

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  2. The buggers anyway. Lucky it was caught! :)

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  3. The same thing happened to us our last night in florida. My husband actually checked his account and found out that 3 purchases were denied. They were in Miami, two at Macy's and one at a coka cola machine. Our bank also caught it before any changes were made. Funny all in Florida.

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  4. I wore one of those tin foil hats for Halloween once. I felt better.
    Luckily, we have not had the credit card problem you described.

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  5. Wow, who knew those companies really kept such close tabs. So far I haven't been charged for anything I haven't bought but I have no idea what they may have denied. Maybe I had better check. Thanks.

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  6. I knew that tin foil would come in handy for something.

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  7. That's a very frightening situation. I'd never heard of this fraud.

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  8. I had to get a new debit card twice last year- both times it was due to people hacking a large company. I still won't shop at one particular company over that mess.

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  9. There's a lot of that type of theft going on, even here in Australia. I had a suspicious thought last week in the city when I saw a young man, seemingly accidentally, bump and older person, making contact with his pocket and shoulder bag. The young man had his hand in his own pocket the whole time and I couldn't help wondering if he had a card reader in there. I may start leaving my card locked away at home. I rarely use it anyway.

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  10. I have had the card people call me several times due our travel...we usually call them ahead of time and tell them we will be traveling and where.

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  11. Amazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here! I definitely learned a lot from reading through some of your earlier posts as well and decided to drop a comment on this one!

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  12. That's awful! What a shame that we can't be out in public without being on guard all the time!

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