Monday, May 25, 2009

Widespread Credit Card Fraud, Bizarre Coincidence or Concoction?

I came across this post at AskMetaFilter.com and found it interesting enough to share.

Apparently some dude who claims that he does NOT play online poker, had a $700 charge appear on his Citi MasterCard. Subsequently his daughter had two charges appear on her statement from the same site. I did a Full Tilt google search and didn't see any mention of this anywhere else, and he claims that his daughter and he checked their statements and didn't make purchases at the same location, meaning it wasn't the result of a retailer breach, so that leaves just three possibilites.

1. This is just the beginnings of some new type of breach...
2. This guy lost money on his card, then put and lost money on his daughters card and
concocted this whole story to get the money back from Citi
3. Someone with access to the household got the card info and used it online

The jury's still out on this one...


Widespread credit card fraud or bizarre coincidence? | Ask Metafilter
Both my daughter and I have fraudulent charges at the same online poker site on our credit cards. Is this happening to lots of people or is it a weird coincidence?

I checked my online account last week and discovered a $700+ charge to FullTiltPoker.

I've never played online poker or even been to the site. I called Citi Mastercard and they have canceled the card and are sending me documents to sign that the charges aren't mine (there were two other pending charges; total of about $2500).

My daughter was checking her account yesterday and had two charges on her account for the same site. She also has a Citi Mastercard, but it's not shared (or even the same type - mine is a rewards card and hers isn't).

Neither of us had lost our cards. My daughter keeps her statements and I shred mine so the information is not being stolen from the garbage or recycling.

They told me at Citi that someone could have hacked into a merchant's computer system where I had used my card. I doubt my daughter and I have used our cards at the same merchant recently.
The odds of this happening to the two of us at virtually the same time seem pretty huge unless it's happening to tons of people. Is it widespread? Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Editor's Note: The odds (interesting choice of words from someone who doesn't gamble) of that happening "only to them" and nobody else with are nil and none. Either someone in the household used the cards or he's trying to pull a fast one on Citi.

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