OT: Folk, have an eye to your credit cards

Comments

• LeatherGryphon Posts: 12,096

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  I got an email two days ago supposedly from my Sears credit card people. I was suspicious so I didn't open it but used the "Properties" feature of Windows LiveMail to look at the raw message data and found enough raw text to determine that they were saying that they wanted to replace my credit card, "just click here...".

  Of course that scared the hell out of me but I followed up and used the phone number on my credit card to call the company and ask them if the message was real. The woman at the call center didn't know about the emails but told me that they were replacing all the customer's cards. She carefully verified I was who I said I was and asked if she could issue my new card right then. I said yes, So I guess in a week or so I'll have a new Sears card.

  I keep a zero balance on all my cards so it's easy to tell if bogus charges are made, and I check almost every day. But I guess Citibank (the Sears card people) has had a major scare and is issuing new cards, (at least for the Sears card holders).

  I have three cards:
  1) a low balance (under $500) card for buying on the Internet,
  2) a department store card (Sears)
  3) a high balance major card for travelling and bank access.

  Two of the three cards have been replaced by the banks in the last 4 months.

  I'll tell you, I'm sooo glad I don't have a smart phone or tablet and I never use public WiFi connections. I always connect through my home's well maintained separate router with firewall fully engaged, and all my computers run full service security applications always kept current. I've had virus and intrusion warnings but have never had a major infection and have (knock on wood) not had my CC charged or my identity stolen. But I feel like a walking target so I'm glad I don't have a portable invade-able system with me when I walk around.

  Post edited by LeatherGryphon on March 2015
• jakiblue Posts: 7,281

  March 2015 edited December 1969

  Tercel, a bunch of us who buy content online have had the same problems in the last month. I'm in Australia and my bank fraud department rang me a week ago to tell me about a suspected fraud attempt on my card. I use a debit card, not a credit card, and it was only a small amount, which the bank said was like a "tester" - if it went through, they know it's a good one. Cancelled my card, waiting on a new one.

  However, I now am NOT using my debit card online at all. Now I use paypal only.

  So something is happening in the world of online purchasing, as quite a few of us were targeted recently.
• Aluworm Posts: 30

  March 2015 edited December 1969

  Same thing happened to me. What I found out was I had the trojan win.32.downloader.bltu on my system which none of my virus scanning software could detect. I ended up downloading Spybot search and destroy to remove it.

  LeatherGryphon the credit card fraud departments will never send an email telling you they want to replace a card. What they will do is call you on your phone or freeze you card forcing you to call them or send an email telling you to call the fraud department.
• Robert Freise Posts: 4,574

  March 2015 edited December 1969

  Had to replace mine twice second time was within eleven days from the first replacement and had only been used on two sites same situation as first card had only been used six sites all sites were 3d related
  tercel
• LeatherGryphon Posts: 12,096

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  Aluworm said:

  Same thing happened to me. What I found out was I had the trojan win.32.downloader.bltu on my system which none of my virus scanning software could detect. I ended up downloading Spybot search and destroy to remove it.

  LeatherGryphon the credit card fraud departments will never send an email telling you they want to replace a card. What they will do is call you on your phone or freeze you card forcing you to call them or send an email telling you to call the fraud department.

  Well, I called the phone number on the card so I guess I was talking to the horses mouth. If a card comes by the end of next week I can relax. Otherwise I'll do a good imitation of anguished panic.

  Edited to add:
  Actually, you got me worried that I had called a number from the e-mail. So I checked and there is no phone number in the email's raw data so I must have gotten the number from the card. To verify, I used my link to the Sears card website and checked my account status. It says the account is closed and that I should re-register my new account number when I have it. I also examined carefully all the web links in the raw data of the email message and they are legitimate. So it appears that in this case Citibank was sending out email notices with option to begin the process of changing accounts. However, I still haven't had the balls to actually open the email and click on one of the available options to test that theory.

  Post edited by LeatherGryphon on March 2015
• LeatherGryphon Posts: 12,096

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  Robert Freise said:

  Had to replace mine twice second time was within eleven days from the first replacement and had only been used on two sites same situation as first card had only been used six sites all sites were 3d related
  tercel

  Arghhh..., I just checked my Sears card and back in January I DID use it once to buy something from DAZ. I've only used that card five times in total. Once to buy a TV from Sears a year or so ago, then in Sears for a bathroom scale, then twice in KMart for a couple small things less than $20, and the one $8 DAZ item. Hmmmm.....

  I normally use my low limit Internet use card for buying from DAZ, not the Sears card but the low limit card was full and there was a DAZ bargain I couldn't pass up. All cards are now (and usually) all paid off at the end of the month.

  Edited to add:
  Just double checked by calling Citibank fraud department and had them go over the raw contents with me and I found the security information he was looking for so he seemed to think that the message appeared to be legitimate. But he also had me forward the message to spoof @ citibank.com which is the Citibank fraud department suspicious mail bag that they supposedly sift through for information. I verified that email address by checking at the Citibank website. The question remains, what triggered the need to re-issue the card in the first place? Probably never know.

  Post edited by LeatherGryphon on March 2015
• robkelk Posts: 3,259

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  Robert Freise said:

  Had to replace mine twice second time was within eleven days from the first replacement and had only been used on two sites same situation as first card had only been used six sites all sites were 3d related
  tercel

  
  I just had to replace my card, for the first time in decades. (I ended up missing the M6 giveaway because of this.) It had been used to place a $4000 order from Blendtech ... which is located a little over an hour away from where DAZ3D is located, if Wikipedia is correct.

  So, yeah - nobody online except my ISP has the new card number. Not even Paypal - yet.

  Post edited by robkelk on March 2015
• Chohole Posts: 33,604

  March 2015 edited December 1969

  a $4000 order from Blendtech

  Blendtech is a different company (or companies actually, there seem to be several with that name) from Blendtec
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,079

  March 2015 edited December 1969

  It's very easy to create theories as to how the card data was obtained, and we've seen people make plausible cases for a number of avenues. The very fact that cases have been made for multiple possible leak sources should caution us against attaching weight to any of them. In order to avoid a fruitless round of speculation we are locking this thread.