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My debit card was hacked by scammers


dawn_b_adams

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This has been an interesting week, and not in a good way. First world problems, I know, but I still complain. :) Crisis #1 - First, I got a bill from the hospital where I had my annual mammogram for $339.00. Uh, just no. I checked the previous year, and the insurance, Tricare, totally covered it. So I called the hospital's billing department. It took forever to get a real live person on the phone, and then they transferred me to some company in Tennessee! Cue curse words, hung up, and tried again. This time, got someone who seemed to know what they were doing. When she checked my account, she stated that it looked like Tricare didn't pay the claim. They didn't deny it, but they didn't pay either. I thought that sounded sketchy because Tricare is really good at paying claims very quickly. The hospital has an awful track record of double dipping and trying to make people pay when they shouldn't have to. Suddenly, she told me the claim was in a "pending" status, so she thought Tricare would pay it soon. So I then called Tricare, and it was another lengthy time before being hooked up with a real live person. They checked and told me the claim had just been paid in full. Okay, one crisis averted.

Crisis #2 - Since I have some of the survey panels I do linked to PayPal, I had some money in my PayPal and decided to transfer it to my debit card. Have done this several times with no issue. Well, I repeatedly tried, and the transfer wouldn't go through. Called PayPal, lengthy time wait for a live human, then got someone. They told me my bank was refusing the transfers, so I would need to call them. I called my credit union. Put on lengthy hold, then recording told me to leave a message and someone would get back to me. Yeah, right. Nope. Hung up, called back, another lengthy wait and then I got a real live human. Told them my issue. They checked my account and informed me there was a hold on my debit card as it appeared someone had made fraudulent charges to my debit card. I used my credit union app, checked, and sure enough, there were four unauthorized charges that I didn't recognize, and definitely didn't authorize. She informed me that they put the hold on my card after there were probably 20-30 more charges that didn't go through. She told me if I came in they could give me a temporary card, and then a permanently card would come through the mail in 10-14 business days. She also gave me the number for the fraud department to dispute the charges. I'm glad they were pretty much on top of it. All in all, about $19 worth of charges went through. It could have been much worse, I suppose. I hung up, cue more curse words, and I called their fraud department. Hardly any hold time, got a live human lickety split. They saw the charges and said they would dispute all four charges and I would get something in the mail on each individual one, would be 2-3 weeks. By this time, I had spent a little over two hours on the phone, and was feeling absolutely violated and livid. I'm very careful with my debit card. I use it to autopay some of my bills and at the grocery store, but not much more than that. I usually check my credit union app once a week. Now I check it every day, lesson learned. The next day I checked it, there were four more fraudulent charges. More curse words, and felt my blood pressure going up. Called credit union back, and she said those were probably pending from the previous day and I shouldn't see any more after that. Of course, I had to call the fraud department back up to dispute the extra four charges. Gee, it's a good thing I'm retired, guess I have nothing better to do than sit on the phone for hours with this crap. 

If I had my way, they'd go after these scammers and lock their sorry butts in prison and throw away the key. I know it's probably millions, if not billions of dollars that are being lost every year. What really chaps my backside is I actually have Lifelock, and hoped having that would alleviate this kind of crap. I guess not. I will be cancelling my Lifelock membership.

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11 minutes ago, dawn_b_adams said:

This has been an interesting week, and not in a good way. First world problems, I know, but I still complain. :) Crisis #1 - First, I got a bill from the hospital where I had my annual mammogram for $339.00. Uh, just no. I checked the previous year, and the insurance, Tricare, totally covered it. So I called the hospital's billing department. It took forever to get a real live person on the phone, and then they transferred me to some company in Tennessee! Cue curse words, hung up, and tried again. This time, got someone who seemed to know what they were doing. When she checked my account, she stated that it looked like Tricare didn't pay the claim. They didn't deny it, but they didn't pay either. I thought that sounded sketchy because Tricare is really good at paying claims very quickly. The hospital has an awful track record of double dipping and trying to make people pay when they shouldn't have to. Suddenly, she told me the claim was in a "pending" status, so she thought Tricare would pay it soon. So I then called Tricare, and it was another lengthy time before being hooked up with a real live person. They checked and told me the claim had just been paid in full. Okay, one crisis averted.

Crisis #2 - Since I have some of the survey panels I do linked to PayPal, I had some money in my PayPal and decided to transfer it to my debit card. Have done this several times with no issue. Well, I repeatedly tried, and the transfer wouldn't go through. Called PayPal, lengthy time wait for a live human, then got someone. They told me my bank was refusing the transfers, so I would need to call them. I called my credit union. Put on lengthy hold, then recording told me to leave a message and someone would get back to me. Yeah, right. Nope. Hung up, called back, another lengthy wait and then I got a real live human. Told them my issue. They checked my account and informed me there was a hold on my debit card as it appeared someone had made fraudulent charges to my debit card. I used my credit union app, checked, and sure enough, there were four unauthorized charges that I didn't recognize, and definitely didn't authorize. She informed me that they put the hold on my card after there were probably 20-30 more charges that didn't go through. She told me if I came in they could give me a temporary card, and then a permanently card would come through the mail in 10-14 business days. She also gave me the number for the fraud department to dispute the charges. I'm glad they were pretty much on top of it. All in all, about $19 worth of charges went through. It could have been much worse, I suppose. I hung up, cue more curse words, and I called their fraud department. Hardly any hold time, got a live human lickety split. They saw the charges and said they would dispute all four charges and I would get something in the mail on each individual one, would be 2-3 weeks. By this time, I had spent a little over two hours on the phone, and was feeling absolutely violated and livid. I'm very careful with my debit card. I use it to autopay some of my bills and at the grocery store, but not much more than that. I usually check my credit union app once a week. Now I check it every day, lesson learned. The next day I checked it, there were four more fraudulent charges. More curse words, and felt my blood pressure going up. Called credit union back, and she said those were probably pending from the previous day and I shouldn't see any more after that. Of course, I had to call the fraud department back up to dispute the extra four charges. Gee, it's a good thing I'm retired, guess I have nothing better to do than sit on the phone for hours with this crap. 

If I had my way, they'd go after these scammers and lock their sorry butts in prison and throw away the key. I know it's probably millions, if not billions of dollars that are being lost every year. What really chaps my backside is I actually have Lifelock, and hoped having that would alleviate this kind of crap. I guess not. I will be cancelling my Lifelock membership.

What a mess I hope it's all cleared up now

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You should not think that this over, nobody is singing yet. Credit cards, insurance, identities are usually found and purchased, for pennies a person, on the Dark Web. it's difficult to know how much is out there for nefarious intent and it's not always about money. I had a dormant, PlentyofFish account hacked, I got notification of women wanting to meet me, after fifteen years of nil. I log in and content had been changed and this guy had several women wooing. I messaged all the ladies and apprised them of the breach and then had POF nix the account.

You should check for account breaches at HaveIBeenPwned? This is for every email address you have ever used. It doesn't matter if the email no longer exists, no longer in used, or if the company is out of business.  Example, I found my 30 year old email from the defunct SSCL on the dark web. If there was any Personally identifiable Information in those posted breaches, the scammers will try to recycle the information for "Credential Stuffing Attack".  These crooks can go after anything of value, like selling your insurance access to someone for some cash. If they buy the full package, they may have a full dossier and can pose as you, or social engineer a customer support agent. They have even breach personal computers to mine cryptocurrency and manage internet attacks.

What you should do? check for breaches,. Check for class action suits, if there are any, there will be details on what was stolen and maybe a slight remedy, change passwords, initiate two factor authentication, dial down the $$ limits on accounts, sensitize activity triggers. Create a mail search term that gathers bank alerts and makes then prominent in the mail program. Use complex passwords for the important sutff, install a password generator, don't store credit card info on retailer sites, use virtual credit cards that create a card/pin number for a specific company and can only be used with that company.  You can freeze your cards and even your credit file and unlock it later. About paying for credit monitoring, many breaches that go to class action, have period of time for credit monitoring as a settlement option.

below are some of the prices from a few years ago, prices are lower at the present, there's a glut of stolen data:

HACKER SERVICE AVG. PRICES
Visa or MasterCard credentials $4
American Express credentials $7
Discover credit credentials $8
Date of birth $11
Credit card with magnetic string or chip data $12
Health insurance credentials $20
Social Security # (as part of a full dossier) $30
   
   
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Holy crap! I had no idea it was this crazy on the dark web. I know a little about the dark web, but after reading your post, I just have chills. So very cheap to get someone’s social security number. With an SSN, you can do so many things in that person’s name. I did already freeze my credit files a few years ago after my identity was stolen. I have alerts on my credit cards that tell me whenever a purchase was done. I’ll take your advice and look into some of the other things. I have Amazon Prime, and frequently download books on my Kindle app. I’ll maybe have to rethink that. Thanks for all your advice. I never thought of a lot of these things. My Ipad has a password generator that I like to use, very easy and that. 

I also advise people that if their identity is stolen to file a police report asap. Also the FTC has a website you can go to and file a report. It gives good practical advice on freezing your credit and that. I locked down everything I could when that happened back in 2018. Now I know to do the same with my new debit card. Live and learn I guess. 

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17 hours ago, dawn_b_adams said:

Holy crap! I had no idea it was this crazy on the dark web. I know a little about the dark web, but after reading your post, I just have chills. So very cheap to get someone’s social security number. With an SSN, you can do so many things in that person’s name. I did already freeze my credit files a few years ago after my identity was stolen. I have alerts on my credit cards that tell me whenever a purchase was done. I’ll take your advice and look into some of the other things. I have Amazon Prime, and frequently download books on my Kindle app. I’ll maybe have to rethink that. Thanks for all your advice. I never thought of a lot of these things. My Ipad has a password generator that I like to use, very easy and that. 

I also advise people that if their identity is stolen to file a police report asap. Also the FTC has a website you can go to and file a report. It gives good practical advice on freezing your credit and that. I locked down everything I could when that happened back in 2018. Now I know to do the same with my new debit card. Live and learn I guess. 

I was just talking to my daughter recently  about Debit cards I know a lot of people do use them but it can lead to bad things if your number gets stolen  you can be wiped out instantly since it is linked to your bank account I think it is safer to use a credit card you can always fight the charges.

 

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1 hour ago, peach6 said:

I was just talking to my daughter recently  about Debit cards I know a lot of people do use them but it can lead to bad things if your number gets stolen  you can be wiped out instantly since it is linked to your Bank Account I think it is safer to use a credit card you can always fight the charges.

 

I agree with you on the credit card thing. I was able to dispute all the unauthorized charges on my debit card. It will take a few weeks, but eventually, I should be reimbursed.

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On 3/25/2022 at 8:39 PM, dawn_b_adams said:

This has been an interesting week, and not in a good way. First world problems, I know, but I still complain. :) Crisis #1 - First, I got a bill from the hospital where I had my annual mammogram for $339.00. Uh, just no. I checked the previous year, and the insurance, Tricare, totally covered it. So I called the hospital's billing department. It took forever to get a real live person on the phone, and then they transferred me to some company in Tennessee! Cue curse words, hung up, and tried again. This time, got someone who seemed to know what they were doing. When she checked my account, she stated that it looked like Tricare didn't pay the claim. They didn't deny it, but they didn't pay either. I thought that sounded sketchy because Tricare is really good at paying claims very quickly. The hospital has an awful track record of double dipping and trying to make people pay when they shouldn't have to. Suddenly, she told me the claim was in a "pending" status, so she thought Tricare would pay it soon. So I then called Tricare, and it was another lengthy time before being hooked up with a real live person. They checked and told me the claim had just been paid in full. Okay, one crisis averted.

Crisis #2 - Since I have some of the survey panels I do linked to PayPal, I had some money in my PayPal and decided to transfer it to my debit card. Have done this several times with no issue. Well, I repeatedly tried, and the transfer wouldn't go through. Called PayPal, lengthy time wait for a live human, then got someone. They told me my bank was refusing the transfers, so I would need to call them. I called my credit union. Put on lengthy hold, then recording told me to leave a message and someone would get back to me. Yeah, right. Nope. Hung up, called back, another lengthy wait and then I got a real live human. Told them my issue. They checked my account and informed me there was a hold on my debit card as it appeared someone had made fraudulent charges to my debit card. I used my credit union app, checked, and sure enough, there were four unauthorized charges that I didn't recognize, and definitely didn't authorize. She informed me that they put the hold on my card after there were probably 20-30 more charges that didn't go through. She told me if I came in they could give me a temporary card, and then a permanently card would come through the mail in 10-14 business days. She also gave me the number for the fraud department to dispute the charges. I'm glad they were pretty much on top of it. All in all, about $19 worth of charges went through. It could have been much worse, I suppose. I hung up, cue more curse words, and I called their fraud department. Hardly any hold time, got a live human lickety split. They saw the charges and said they would dispute all four charges and I would get something in the mail on each individual one, would be 2-3 weeks. By this time, I had spent a little over two hours on the phone, and was feeling absolutely violated and livid. I'm very careful with my debit card. I use it to autopay some of my bills and at the grocery store, but not much more than that. I usually check my credit union app once a week. Now I check it every day, lesson learned. The next day I checked it, there were four more fraudulent charges. More curse words, and felt my blood pressure going up. Called credit union back, and she said those were probably pending from the previous day and I shouldn't see any more after that. Of course, I had to call the fraud department back up to dispute the extra four charges. Gee, it's a good thing I'm retired, guess I have nothing better to do than sit on the phone for hours with this crap. 

If I had my way, they'd go after these scammers and lock their sorry butts in prison and throw away the key. I know it's probably millions, if not billions of dollars that are being lost every year. What really chaps my backside is I actually have Lifelock, and hoped having that would alleviate this kind of crap. I guess not. I will be cancelling my Lifelock membership.

Very sorry to hear Dawn. Hope you get this all sorted

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Over the years I've had occasional fraudulent attempts on my Mastercard which I have through Citibank. They always caught the fraud, notified me by phone, email and text. I called them up, got through right away and they cancelled the old card and overnighted me a new credit card. It happened about 3 times although it's been a few years since the last time.

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15 hours ago, ErgoProxy said:

Over the years I've had occasional fraudulent attempts on my Mastercard which I have through Citibank. They always caught the fraud, notified me by phone, email and text. I called them up, got through right away and they cancelled the old card and overnighted me a new credit card. It happened about 3 times although it's been a few years since the last time.

I have the same type card and I got a call from an Airline saying something was off on my account.  What??  I don't fly.  So I called Citibank and got the card shut down.  $800 for tickets from Atlanta to Denver was denied.  Good.  Then after spending quite some time on the phone with them, I was assured it was fine.  They sent me a new card, AND a nice letter spelling out how they had caught this and had thwarted any effort by thieves.  Uhm, I called them.  They did this to me twice, and I cancelled the card.  They even called me to discuss it and told me what a huge mistake I was making because I NEEDED that card.  No, no I do not.

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