Card skimmers.

[dareo]

At these gas prices peoples gas credit cards are maxed out, why bother stealing them? Sorta joking.

 

[SevenBizzos]

That is the nice thing about using CCs.

My debit card got hit some months back. A bunch of random online purchases, starting with ones that were a few cents, assuming this is how the crooks know if it's go time or not.

They pulled my checking account into a negative and since I have overdraft protection through my bank, they started pulling out of my savings account. Thousands of dollars total. Scared the living heck out of me. I get notifications, but it happened in the middle of the night and I caught the messages in the morning.

Luckily, one call to the bank's fraud line sorted it and my money was refunded in a few days.

Regardless, I will never use my debit card (VISA) for anything online again. Only CCs.

We just finished up an episode of this. We had no idea what was going on as we had the physical card. Pulled all the balance of the checking and because of the "overdraft protection" they nearly got all of the savings. Made that call too and it took 4 days (2 business days) to rectify everything.

Thankfully, we have other accounts, so we "lived" off those until everything got fixed.

I'm just a little confused why my bank didn't send us a text or something as these were multiple > $1000 purchase and we have never spend that amount. I was unable to tell if the companies manually entered the numbers or was it a "fake" card.

Yeah, using a CC seems like a better idea now. Never really gave it much thought.

 

[JTK]

@SevenBizzos Same. They nearly cleaned us out. It more like 4 actual days for us too, to be made whole.

 

[Gimpy1]

You have to stay one step ahead of the crooks / and they are everywhere.
1) Freeze your credit score at (5) agencies
2) Check your credit card statement Weekly / and report any charges you did not make
I receive an e-mail every time my card is used

I agree dont ever use your debit card, use a credit card, with a cc you have fraud protection

 

[PimTac]

My bank sends a instant notification whenever my debit card is used. Same with the credit card. (Apple)

If your bank doesn’t have this option I would ask them why.