# it's so easy to become a victim

Category: Let's talk

## Post 1 by sugarbaby (The voice of reason) on Thursday, 29-Jun-2006 9:42:30

this week I was the victim of credit card fraud. My card was cloaned after a transaction I did online a couple of months ago, and someone signed up to several online places to the tune of approx £2000. Obviously I'm not accountable and the card company have stopped my card and are sorting it out, but it goes to show how careful you have to be.

## Post 2 by Susanne (move over school!) on Thursday, 29-Jun-2006 10:24:54

No kidding. Luckily, though, credit card companies seem to be pretty helpful in handling this. My parents went to Greece once and had their credit card double-swiped, and after they had left the country someone went on a shopping spree in Athens (where they had never gone) with their credit card. The credit card company didn't even require any proof that they could not possibly have made the purchases--which they could have given, had it been required of them--but just accepted their word at face value. I suppose one thing to learn from this is that it's a really bad idea to have your account set up so that the credit card company can automatically withdraw your balance from your bank account at the end of the month, and keep it so that you actually actively pay your bill--it's much harder to be refunded for money that the credit card company already has because they took it out of your account than it is to have charges dropped.

## Post 3 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Thursday, 29-Jun-2006 13:30:39

Also one should always view one's online credit card statement and running charges at lesat once every 2 or 3 days and make usre the transactions listedon there match up with purchases you actually made. If not, alert the credit card company immediately.
In addition to that I subscribe to a credit monitoring service that shows any inquiry or account opening done in my name anywhere in the U.S. and notifies me via email if any such activity occurs. It's $9 a month but totally worth the money.

## Post 4 by Musical Ambition (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Thursday, 29-Jun-2006 14:30:07

This kind of thing is very bad, and scary. This is exactly why I wouldn't put my credit card information on the computer. I wouldn't use it very often at stores or places like that, either. It's something that I would try very hard to protect. You have to be extremely careful these days. Unfortunately, many people think that something like this won't ever happen to them, but it can, at any time.

## Post 5 by sparkie (the hilljack) on Thursday, 29-Jun-2006 21:02:04

I had this happen to me last winter. Luckily I just happened to be off that day and I just happen to be checking my bank statement online. I could say I was in the right place at the right time, because if I'd been working god only knows how much money could of been gone. My card was stopped and all transactions were recovered and refunded back to me after a bit of paper work.
Troy