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I had a nice walk with M. I had a tasty chicken and veg stir fry for lunch. I had a successful team meeting for my son T.
And then all hell broke loose.
I checked my email. There was an email from my credit card company saying, was this charge yours? Why, no! I have actually never used that service, even tho I did download their app. Block. I got the card out. I called the number on the card. I went through the automated and in person security questions. I said I was calling because of a fraud email. And _then_ I opened up the account page in my browser.
Wow.
I mean, it has been a busy month for travel. So I had not checked in since November 3. Still, under a month. And starting a few days after that, I had a lot of fraudulent credit card charges. I sort of decompensated for a few minutes, but Andrew was really nice and stayed calm and we got through the whole process in under a half hour. For reference purposes, the total amount of money was _less_ than a family of four's median annual income in the US. But _more_ than half of that income.
The charge that triggered the fraud alert was for a company that I have downloaded the app for and may well have set up an account with, but have never actually used (a transportation network company). But that was chump change. The vast bulk of the charges was with a company that you know that sells tickets. And not as a reseller. I _do_ have an account with them. I _have_ bought tickets from them. In fact, I bought tickets with them _using the credit card in question_ smack in the middle of the time frame of the fraudulent charges.
So WTF, ticket seller? Why would you allow so many charges for sports tickets go to a credit card number and a different email address than the legit user who has been doing business with you for months? Why would you do that? For three weeks? I mean, my credit card company is totes going to bounce all those charges back to you.
I was super careful to make sure the legit ticket purchase did not get confused with the fraudulent purchases. I actually would like to go see AJR again.
In the meantime, I've been googling around trying to figure out how common this problem is (surprisingly common) and what the ticket seller might be doing to proactively identify fraudulent purchases (my situation would seem to be pretty easy to identify. "Hey, we've seen this credit card before. With a different account and email. Maybe we should heads-up the pre-existing user, vs. this new person who is buying a ton of stuff".). The answer seems to be: not a whole helluva lot proactively.
And then all hell broke loose.
I checked my email. There was an email from my credit card company saying, was this charge yours? Why, no! I have actually never used that service, even tho I did download their app. Block. I got the card out. I called the number on the card. I went through the automated and in person security questions. I said I was calling because of a fraud email. And _then_ I opened up the account page in my browser.
Wow.
I mean, it has been a busy month for travel. So I had not checked in since November 3. Still, under a month. And starting a few days after that, I had a lot of fraudulent credit card charges. I sort of decompensated for a few minutes, but Andrew was really nice and stayed calm and we got through the whole process in under a half hour. For reference purposes, the total amount of money was _less_ than a family of four's median annual income in the US. But _more_ than half of that income.
The charge that triggered the fraud alert was for a company that I have downloaded the app for and may well have set up an account with, but have never actually used (a transportation network company). But that was chump change. The vast bulk of the charges was with a company that you know that sells tickets. And not as a reseller. I _do_ have an account with them. I _have_ bought tickets from them. In fact, I bought tickets with them _using the credit card in question_ smack in the middle of the time frame of the fraudulent charges.
So WTF, ticket seller? Why would you allow so many charges for sports tickets go to a credit card number and a different email address than the legit user who has been doing business with you for months? Why would you do that? For three weeks? I mean, my credit card company is totes going to bounce all those charges back to you.
I was super careful to make sure the legit ticket purchase did not get confused with the fraudulent purchases. I actually would like to go see AJR again.
In the meantime, I've been googling around trying to figure out how common this problem is (surprisingly common) and what the ticket seller might be doing to proactively identify fraudulent purchases (my situation would seem to be pretty easy to identify. "Hey, we've seen this credit card before. With a different account and email. Maybe we should heads-up the pre-existing user, vs. this new person who is buying a ton of stuff".). The answer seems to be: not a whole helluva lot proactively.