A few months ago, my credit card company called and told me that there has been an unauthorized transaction on my card and cancelled the present card and sent me a new one with a new number. What they caught was a transaction of $0.75 and what was lurking beneath was a transaction for $93 which had happened at a Kroger grocery store in Michigan. Once I noticed it, I reported the same and the company took care of this problem and refunded me the money.
I wouldn’t have been writing this post if it were just that. Below is a pic of the transaction record as shown on my card statement.
If you observe closely, the transaction hasn’t happened online but at a specific grocery store and the person has also taken cash from the card. My cards are never lost and on the day of this transaction, I was in Austin getting a car wash. I have never visited Michigan.
Question is, how did this person manage to use the card in a store without the card being present?, I myself do not know the pin number to draw money on the card, how did this guy figure it out. I have been looking to see if one can just use a card number for a transaction without the card being present and haven’t come across anybody saying yes it is possible.
One possibility is, the card company made a mistake in processing transactions and the charge appeared on my account instead of the other. But I have had this card for last 11 years and they have changed the number multiple times and such a thing has never happened. I can’t think of any other way, wonder if the blog readers can shed some light on this.
1 comment:
If one of the places where you legitimately used the card had a dishonest employee, s/he could use a "skimming device" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud#Skimming to copy contents and then produce a replica of your card.
Post a Comment