What's the worst thing that has happened involving your credit card? (paying, taxes)
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Last November my husband and I ate at a different Outback than where we usually go. We decided to use our Discover Card that we don't use much, thank goodness. Our waitress was too much interested in her friends at the next table and when it took her way too long to return our card I was a bit suspicious, but didn't think too much about it.
Two weeks later, during Black Friday, I received an alert from Discover asking me if we had purchased items in Florida. When I told them no, I further investigated and found about $3000 in fraudulent charges, including items from Macy's at the Mall of America. So apparently the number was stolen and either sold or at least given to several people. Luckily Discover thought it was strange that large purchases were made in Florida and Minnesota on the same day. Still had a few charges trickle in from stores that had been approved before the card got totally cancelled. Although I was annoyed that I had to find and report them rather than Discover questioning them. I finally told them that the only charges were 2 restaurant charges the beginning of November and anything was fraudulent.
One time I had Visa put a lock on my card because of several purchases in Disney World. They called our house and my mother took the call and told me about it, so we got it straightened out. Now if we are going out of town and plan on using our card a lot, I call them and give them a heads up about where and when. Plus we always carry 2 different cards just in case.
my Citibank Amex and my wife's Citibank MC are both super aggressive in fraud alerts and stopping purchases from going through. this is good i guess and have never NEEEDED them to do it but have on quite a few occasions looked silly while my card gets denied for a routine purchase. Better safe than sorry i guess, and i always have a backup card for these situations since i don't get the fraud texts till 10-15 minutes afterwards
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Originally Posted by Lacerta
I have had only one time I've had anything bad happen. I used my card to pay for a meal at a restaurant, and when I looked the next day, I had a charge on my card that was much larger than my meal. I called the restaurant, and they reversed the charge and comped my meal. No idea whether it was a mistake or fraud, but it was fixed with 1 phone call.
I had something similar to this. The waitress had changed the tip amount. Instead of first contacting the card company I spoke with the manager of the restaurant. He apologized, reversed the charges to my card, comped my meal and also gave me a coupon for a free meal for two.
I no longer include tips on the credit card slip and now I always put a big X on the tip line.
A few weeks back I woke up with a $710CAD charge from a Ritz Carlton in Cancun, Mexico. Luckily I reported fraud and it was dealt with and no consequences for me. Phew. I have no idea how that happened. I didn't drink too much and buy weird stuff and forget about it or anything, and the last time I was in Mexico was in April.
A few months ago my computer went batshyte crazy on me and had a dozen boxes pop up on my screen. I couldn't get ANY of them to go away and it turned out that it was someone wanting me to buy their 'protection program'. Oh yeah, my computer was just FULL of viruses, Trojans, etc...NOT. I couldn't even get to my desktop, that's how tight it was sewed up. Soooo, I went ahead and paid the stupid thing and then kept my eye on my credit card account. Three days later it showed up and was from somewhere overseas. And no protection showed up on my computer either. I called the bank, told them what happened and they stopped payment and issued me a new card. If that ever happens again I'll be sorely tempted to just toss this computer and get another one! My brother, the IT guy, says there IS a way to get rid of that stuff and to call him if it ever happens again.
That's the only negative experience I've ever had with a credit card. We had a huge hacking problem here though, just recently. People who were shopping at certain grocery stores were getting their numbers stolen and things being bought all over the country. The banks were staying busy cancelling and reissuing cards like crazy for a few months.
Last year I had someone apply for a bunch of store credit cards and a few regular ones. Mostly I got rejection letters that the application was a from a suspicious source or something to that effect. One company sent me the credit card and when I went online to poke into it the secondary contact info (phone) and email address were all someone else's. I guess they just wait for you to activate the card and then call and say they lost it? No idea. I just called the credit card company's fraud line and they closed the account, said they'd look into it, and I had them send the free copy of my credit report. Nothing's happened since but kind of creepy.
If you haven't put a security freeze in place with Transunion, Experian, and Equifax, and pulled your credit report from all three companies, do it NOW! You don't want to find out that you have car loans, mortgages, etc. under your name that you never applied for.
Just fraud alert stuff. The worst was when we landed at O'Hare and went to pick up the rent-a-car to drive to our downtown hotel. VISA? No go. Mastercard? No go. I'm seeing this whole vacation going up in smoke, here! Finally it dawned on me to call home and see if a message had been left from the fraud alert folks. Sure enough, and it included a number to call. All was straightened out soon enough and we were on our way. Turned out the fraud was that someone was in Chicago trying to use our credit card to rent a car. These days, I let the issuer know if we're going to be out of town. You can save a lot of hassles that way.
If you haven't put a security freeze in place with Transunion, Experian, and Equifax, and pulled your credit report from all three companies, do it NOW! You don't want to find out that you have car loans, mortgages, etc. under your name that you never applied for.
/Shrug, not worried about something that happened four years ago. I did put a credit freeze on i twhen it happened.
Traveling and card number stolen at motel and used that night. Next day credit card was frozen. I always carry several cards for problems such as this.
One morning USAA called me and asked me if I had been in Germany purchasing a $4,000 plane ticket (can't remember the destination). I said...um.... no. They said that the day before, someone made two small purchases (under $10) with my card in South Carolina, and then this morning attempted the plane ticket purchase. They said this was a common pattern- confirm that the card works, then try to use it for a large purchase.
Wallet lost off the back of the tailgate, then stolen off the road (found some stuff tossed out)
These two were the husband, NOT me.
Once I used it at Amazon and next day there was an overseas magazine subscription ordered in unknown country.
My card companies are pretty careful. We took a trip a few states north and couldn't use it to buy gas. We'd forgotten to alert them of our travel. Couple months ago we ordered rather large business purchase and card wouldn't allow. Was over our regular buying history, so we had to call and say please allow.
But I must say I feel very blessed when I read what others have been through.
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My brother, the IT guy, says there IS a way to get rid of that stuff and to call him if it ever happens again.
