Ever had your identity or bank card # stolen? What happened?

Four days ago I was trying to pay for some laundry stuff which came to only around $6, when my card was declined. Needless to say I disputed it and asked that she run it through again, but it was declined. So I tried calling my banks toll free cust service #'s, but both were busy. So I called a local branch office and was informed that their server was down due to the 3" deluge we were receiving at that time. But about 1.5 hours later my card was working again.

**Sidebar note: doesn't it seem odd that one of USA's largest banks doesn't have a backup server?

So....just 2 days later on Thursday, I go to pay for my small grocery list of $19, when the self service automated pay machine declines my card again, for the 2nd time in 48 hours, but there wasn't a major rainstorm this time, as it was actually sunny outside(which is very unfamiliar this year). I call the cust service #, and after waiting several minutes(as always since TD took over), the lady told me there was no problem and it should work.

So I go over to the nearest bank branch, and the cust service lady informs me my card has been closed, because apparently someone had somehow gotten hold of my card number and was repeatedly attempting to make purchases at several stores online. First they kept trying to spend $1 at this software store(4 times), then they tried Sears and Walmart, then some online store called marrakechinn, but the only thing I can find when I search that name are the Marakech hotels in Morocco, but the fraud specialist at the bank told me its a USA address in Pa and a bike related store(??)

fortunately all their attempts failed which is good because they were trying to buy over $1200 in goods over just a 15 minute period. So I had to change acct info and get new numbers etc. their security people are on the ball, but they do need to better train their branch customer service staff, because the person I spoke with wasn't very knowledgeable about this and gave me some bad info.


But what happens if someone is successful at making purchases using your money from your accounts, does the bank usually refund the stolen funds back into your account if its a debit card or bank account? What about credit card funds that are stolen?

Have you had your bank cards stolen or your identity stolen?

Bummer.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. It's good to hear that the thief couldn't do any major harm.

I've never had anyone try to use my identity to buy goods or services but when I visited Tokyo I racked up some big expenses in a bar :drunk:
My card was then locked up because they thought it was a fraudulent purchase!

Its happened to me and my dad and my friend. Friend had £2000+ stolen. On all occasions the bank returned the cash. Mine was just on a debit card too so not covered like a credit card is.

It's happened to me several times. You contact the number on the back of the card. They then send you an affidavit to sign. The also request you contact your local police and file a report of theft. They ask for the officer's name and police department number. Not always, but don't be surprised if they do.

The card is cancelled and they send you a new one in a few days. So, make sure to have some cash on hand before. The money is returned, if any was spent, and it is then up to the seller to collect the funds or take it as a loss. You are not responsible for one penny of it. However, the government takes care of that for them, most of the time. They are, like everyone of us, able to report theft loss during tax time and 'get' the money back. Mine was on a debit card, but my bank covers theft if I report it in time. I also get alerts via email, too. That's what happened the last time about a year ago.

omG, this sounds horrible. Thank God your bank services are so good that they detected fraud immediately.

I had a similar, though not the same experience last year. I forgot everything, my phone, ID card and three bank cards in a taxi (I'd put all that in just one pouch as I had to go to the hospital and it was easier to handle all that if it were in one place). I got home and realized all that was left in the taxi. I tracked down the driver through some memories of what he'd said and done during the short trip, we called the company, described him, they made him come back, but of course none of my items were in the car. He must've hidden everything. There was about $50 cash, too.

So, as it was about midnight, I immediately started calling some services to block accounts and cards. My bank's office were perfect, they blocked my cards immediately. The other bank where I only have deposits, no cards, but the deposits could be accessed with an ID (which was also stolen), also took a notice and made an announcement that my ID had been stolen and my account cannot be accessed even with an ID temporarily.

Then I called my mobile operators to ask them to block my SIM card so that someone doesn't decide to make insanely expensive calls with my phone.

Eventually, as here it's been quite common that frauds steal people's ID cards and withdraw different credits or buy some goods or make contracts with the victim's IDs, I called our Emergency number 112 (for the US 911) to report that my ID has been stolen. I did it even twice. The only reason being that I wanted that report to be recorded in their archive in case someone misuses my ID. This way I'd have had a proof that my ID had been stolen earlier than the crime committed with it.

One thing I didnt mention in OP was that I still have no idea how someone got hold of my bank card number. I didnt lose my wallet, and in fact I just got a new card issued a few months ago, and of course it had a new number. So somehow someone at a store ATM or checkout line must have watched me and wrote down the card number, or someone copied it at an online store where I bought something, or ???

I've seen instances where someone's web-browser was high-jacked and was set to send all internet traffic to a proxy server; unless you suspect anything, you probably will never check for this either. My guess, if someone on the proxy end is recording the info, they just need to wait for online purchases / banking transactions. This can happen at public wi-fi spots as well. One person on the network can run packet-sniffing software and record all transmissions, save to a file, and decoded at a later time.

I had my debit and credit card stolen. Both were used to buy gas and stuff at convenience stores. This was the late '90s so no big purchases online. I suppose the thief wasn't very internet savvy. Called my bank and cancelled both cards, problem solved and IIRC I got the money back after disputing it.

HighlanderNorth said:

One thing I didnt mention in OP was that I still have no idea how someone got hold of my bank card number. I didnt lose my wallet, and in fact I just got a new card issued a few months ago, and of course it had a new number. So somehow someone at a store ATM or checkout line must have watched me and wrote down the card number, or someone copied it at an online store where I bought something, or ???

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I've also heard of people hacking into the terminals at various stores so they can steal credit card information.

My wife and I had similar occurrences. Both of them were last year, within a couple of months of one another. Our debit card numbers were lifted electronically, likely from a card swiper at a particular supermarket. The first time, I deposited a check and the receipt read a balance that was $1,000 less than the amount of the check. I ran into the bank and saw that someone had drained thousands upon thousands of dollars from the acccount in a couple of days. Most was overseas online purchases, one in particular was Symatec AV software. That in particular was a nightmare to get reversed (another reason I'll never use their crap software).

Anyway, both times the bank (Capital One) was very helpful and got us all of our money back. I sat with a rep (who we're now good friends with actually) and reviewed every debit to the account. Every fraudulent one was cited on a list and an affidavit was signed to begin the recovery process. A couple phone calls and some paperwork later, they gave us provisional credit for the amount that was taken so that our account would have the balance back. After two weeks, the investigation was complete and the funds were finalized. That was pretty much it. The same thing happened the second time.

It was pretty nerve wracking the first time, since they took so much. However we were covered and it all was worked out pretty quickly.

One of ours turned out to be a local petrol station run by Somalis. Suspect similar with another one too.

PapaLumen said:

One of ours turned out to be a local petrol station run by Somalis. Suspect similar with another one too.

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Really, the owners of the gas station were running a stolen bank card business on the side? I was thinking that what happened to my card could be due to me using 2 or 3 gas station ATM's over the past 3 months or so.

But my computer was down for a while(both of them actually), and I was using my Iphone 4S for my online purchases, and I wonder if its possible that someone could hijack your Iphone's wireless signal and get your info that way?

back in my early twenties someone maxed out one of my credit card accounts. i still had my card, somehow they made a duplicate or something.
i disputed it, but the credit card company sent me proof of receipts, which was not even close to my signature. i disputed again, but they still want to hold me responsible. i ended giving them the finger, and screwed up my credit over this incident.

i didnt use my card for many places, and im almost certain it was from a small private store that was a culprit. they didnt stay in business long. and i would say that they probably opened the business just to collect credit card info.
i would remember the clerk would sometimes swipe my card twice. and im thinking they had a machine that took the info, and was able to duplicate cards somehow.
i wont mention their ethnicity, but they are known for doing a lot of fraud of all types, especially medicare fraud.

nowadays, im very selective about where i swipe my card. i never pay at a restaurant with my card, or at any small shops. usually its used for gas, and internet shopping. cash is king

Here they've been warning us for ages that there are frauds who place some "smart" devices inside ATMs (right where you slide your card). Then the device records your data. Then it does it with the another card and this way they deceive many people. There are criminals who go so far as to make tens of plastic cards, write right on them the PIN codes and info which the device in the ATM recorded and then just use them as regular debit or credit cards. I only try to use the ATMs at our central bank offices and where there are cameras... hoping nothing will happen. Though most people don't even withdraw money nowadays, lol.

N_N_R said:

Here they've been warning us for ages that there are frauds who place some "smart" devices inside ATMs (right where you slide your card). Then the device records your data. Then it does it with the another card and this way they deceive many people. There are criminals who go so far as to make tens of plastic cards, write right on them the PIN codes and info which the device in the ATM recorded and then just use them as regular debit or credit cards. I only try to use the ATMs at our central bank offices and where there are cameras... hoping nothing will happen. Though most people don't even withdraw money nowadays, lol.

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Thats basically the type of situation that the branch office lady told me about. She mentioned that they somehow put a camera in/on the private owned ATM's, then the machine will force you to swipe your card twice after saying it didnt register the first swipe, then the camera picks up your card number, and they retrieve the camera later with all the recorded card numbers and either sell the info or use it themselves.

I dont know if thats what happened with me, but I was forced to use 2 or 3 gas station ATM's over a 3 month period, so who knows if thats the answer or not. But someone told me earlier today that this type of scam has been exposed, and maybe its not being done much anymore. But I'd take that with a grain of salt, because I'm sure that if this works, then people are still doing it at some private ATM's at privately owned gas stations and stores.

HighlanderNorth said:

First they kept trying to spend $1 at this software store(4 times), then they tried Sears and Walmart, then some online store called marrakechinn, but the only thing I can find when I search that name are the Marakech hotels in Morocco, but the fraud specialist at the bank told me its a USA address in Pa and a bike related store(??)

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Just for the record, the multiple $1 authorization attempts (called $1 Auth in the industry) are pretty good indications that the software store was using an enhanced card user authentication scheme like VerifiedByVisa (TM). In it the card user's browser is redirected to the card issuing bank website and the bank asks some security questions directly rather than through the website. If you are OK, the bank sends a digitally signed message back to the store saying that you are the cardholder and that the bank will take the responsibility for any fraud off the merchant. Usually when a third party is doing that processing for the bank, they will do a $1 Auth as part of the validation.
Or the merchant has asked for some piece of data like your address or zip code and the store is sending a $1 Auth request to the bank to validate that information.
You are lucky that the software store had good security or you would have had more drained from your account a lot sooner.


The large downside is that if somebody tries to use your card at a gas station, the station will request or your bank will automatically process a $75 or more hold on the card until the transaction actually completes. Very painful if it is a debit card tied to your checking account, since the bank may take up to a week to release the hold.

HighlanderNorth said:

One thing I didnt mention in OP was that I still have no idea how someone got hold of my bank card number. I didnt lose my wallet, and in fact I just got a new card issued a few months ago, and of course it had a new number.

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Does your card have a RFID chip in it? a cousin of mine had some money stolen from his that way.

Sorry to hear your bad luck with such, i hope you get every thing sorted out good!

But to answer you main question, no. that's why 95% of the stuff i buy is with good ol cash, paper.

HighlanderNorth said:

**Sidebar note: doesn't it seem odd that one of USA's largest banks doesn't have a backup server?

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No. Local offices, and their big offices, are going to be in entirely different IT universes. Warm spares would probably cost them tens of thousands of dollars a year, and cold spares would take forever to get up to date, since they would never get the kind of maintenance they would need.

Anyway, I was unable to buy groceries. I paid cash, instead, then headed over to my bank, and found they had allowed some, but not all, of the fraudulent charges, and canceled perfectly legitimate orders. It just *had* to happen right after I got paid, and spent my planned hobby money. None of the charges were large, and they were all pretty mundane online orders, spread out evenly across the prior day and a half. I got it sorted all out at the bank office, including my account unfrozen. I read everything twice, signed the papers, got my copies, and got a new card in the mail within a week.

It was a Visa debit, and my funds were corrected in less than 2 days. It wasn't merely refunding, because they had also flagged perfectly legit charges.

It was frustrating, but not nearly as much as I would have expected it to be. I guess it's common enough that the banks and businesses have good protocols figured out for dealing with it, now.

My mother and brother both once had fraudulent charges on their credit cards. Fortunately the bank called them up when it noticed a change in their usual spending patterns. The charges were for things like airline tickets and hotels. Nobody in our family flies or uses hotels, so the charges raised a red flag.

I don't know anyone who ever had their identity stolen but I heard there are two kinds. One type just involves someone using your personal info pretending to be you. The other is where you no longer exist to your family, friends, and coworkers. Obviously the second kind is very rare, but I recall reading about a case some years back. Not sure how they did it, but I'll guess the identity thieves gathered a list of everyone you personally knew, then used hypnosis or subliminal suggestion to wipe their memories of you. Or maybe something like the neuralizer from Men In Black exists. In any case, I thought it was interesting and also a bit frightening if someone could really pull this off.