Hopefully not, but I was wondering if any of you have experienced it? I went shopping with my girlfriend last Friday to get a gift for her Mother. At the register, her debit card was declined. The store employee actually had the nerve to suggest that it was due to not having any money in the bank, when 90% of the time it's because the card didn't swipe good in the machine or something. Kinda pissed me off the way she said it. We pay with cash to avoid any other complication. As soon as we leave the register, my girlfriend checks her bank account on her phone just to be certain.

Sure enough, there had been a couple thousand dollars worth of charges made to a website that same day. www(dot)BECLEO(dot)com was the name of the website IIRC. It was too late in the afternoon to call the bank or the fraud department but we call early on Saturday. The bank had already canceled the card and stopped some of the transactions from going through. They assured her that her money would be returned to her account, but only after the remaining transactions go through, which were several hundred dollars worth. They also told her it would be about ten days before they could get her a new card, but that she could still write checks. However, she now has no money in her account until they can return the charged amounts.

So right at Christmas time, she has almost no way to pay for gifts for people or to pay bills. She's upset about it, but she can get cash from me so it's not that big of a deal.

The biggest thing is making sure that whoever did it can't do it again, and hasn't taken any credit cards out in her name to charge more things and such. I don't know much about how to make sure or prevent this kind of thing.

If it wasn't something completely random, my girlfriend actually has a clue of how it might have happened. She had a party where a company representative comes and sales stuff to a group and all that, kinda like a Tupperware party (If that's a real thing, IDK). I wasn't there but my girlfriend said the representative was nowhere near professional or what you'd expect. The GF actually said that she and her friends were afraid that buying anything would only be supporting the woman's meth addiction. Nevertheless, they bought stuff, some including my girlfriend, used their bank cards.

Any tips, things to do, ways to make sure?

 

Don't buy things from black markets with credit cards. There's a reason those people don't have their own stores and have to have parties to sell their products.

 

If your refering to the sales rep.; It's was a legit business, just that the representative didn't look the most trust worthy from the description my girlfriend gave me. But yeah, we stick to pretty mainstream vendors. Other than that one possibility, I can't think of anywhere that her card information wouldn't have been safe.

 

I just had an odd experience with fraud linked to my account.. Somehow my debit card number was stolen and used to open a Fed Ex account in my name, address, everything. Thankfully I keep a very close eye on my account and noticed a $1.00 charge from Fed Ex. I called immediately to find out why my account was being charged and they explained the the account had been opened. I of course said that I had by no means opened any account with them and it needed to be cancelled immediately.

The account was terminated and any/all deliveries would be flagged and returned. Well, a couple of days later I get a stack of large envelopes from Fed Ex that had been returned. All of them were addressed to different people and places. I opened them all up and most of them had printed checks in the amount of $2800~ and one of them had a different check that was about $5000~.. Saturday I received two more that had $2800~ checks..

Very odd deal, I have no idea what their angle is and what they actually stood to gain from it because I'm reasonably certain that all of the checks would have been bad so any deposit done with them would have been returned.

I honestly have no idea how they got my info, I really don't use my card online much and when I do it's always with sites that I trust and have used on a regular basis so I'm assuming that it was probably stolen by a swipe machine or something along those lines.

Just be extremely careful and watch your accounts like a hawk. I personally check my bank accounts at least 3 times a day if not more. If you see anything out of the ordinary act on it immediately.

 

Just happened to me last month. I bought a DVD drive from Newegg, and then about 2 weeks later I got my CC statement and saw a seperate $220 charge on it from Newegg... I knew for sure the DVD drive I had purchased was no where near that expensive, so I called Newegg and asked them about this charge. They told me I had also purchased an Ipod touch. I informed them that I indeed had not purchased the ipod. They told me to take it up with my CC company. I did, and they gave me back the money and closed my account and issued me a new card. I got a letter in the mail about 3 days later that was a legal document from my CC company. I just had to sign it saying that I didnt purchase the ipod so they could go after Newegg. I got my $ back.

 

I had charges on my checking account from a Foot Locker and Best Buy in New Jersey once. Wells Fargo had called me to ask about it since I'm in Cali, and I told them nope, I'm still in Cali. Within a few days they had put the money back in. Some credit card companies will call you if they notice either a high amount being charged or if it's in a location far away from where you are. It sucks, but sometimes there's not much you can do. Somehow they used my checking card in New Jersey, but yet it was in my wallet the whole time.

 

My cards were put on a fraud hold when I was driving from Phoenix to Northern California a few months back. In one day I charged my uhaul, uhaul trailer, 35 gallons of fuel, storage payment. I did that all in the phoenix area. About 3-4 hours later when I needed to get some grub and fuel but my cards were declined. I just made some calls to find out that my wells fargo credit card was put on fraud alert until I gave them my password and verified my transactions...I'm not a dirtbag.

All of the years I have done online shopping I have pretty fortunate to not have many issues of fraud. Thank goodness.

 

I only had problems because a bank was too careful, not that I am complaining! I took a vacation out of state and spent a lot more than I normally do (I don't use my cards anywhere if I can help it... helps me not spend money too) anyways my card got declined when I KNOW I had enough money saved so I called the bank and they explained that they saw "uncharacteristic spending patterns." I guess it makes me feel a little safer knowing they watched out for it.

On another note... one of my friends mom has a side business like that... pampered chef or something of the sort... anyways she has people question so she writes out receipts with info (including sales ID or whatever its called) on her if they are skeptical. A little more plausible in a small town but still I wouldn't buy something unless I know I can get a hold of the person in case something goes wrong

 

That's a weird deal with WNRacing. My girl once had a check mailed to her from Canada for a couple thousand with a letter explaining and telling her to cash it, and send a percentage of it back. A scam of course, but I guess they hope people will send them money before finding out that its a fake check or something.

So far the bank has refunded the money but put a insufecient funds charge on her account for it being overdrawn, gotta go up there to get that taken off. She e-mailed the website that the charges were made to, they responded saying that there has been a rash of it going on with thier site lately and trying to figure out who is doing it.

 

If she has an idea of where the issue originated then she should be approaching the local constabulary AND the FBI. They both take a serious interest in CC fraud. Our whole economy is based on those cards. If people don't feel safe using them the economy collapses rather suddenly. The Feds thus take it extremely seriously. Since you have info from becleo.com about there being a lot of it lately (my company deals with it constantly) then you now have something more for them to go on and maybe even a specific person for them to interview.

Also call the BBB and request a review of becleo.com and the meth-head company your girl bought from. Note the reason is credit card fraud. Don't bother submitting the web form, it's broken. Call them.

 

I use my company's CU for all banking and credit card stuff. Hell they won't even let me use my card sometimes.. LOL... They look for any out the norm charges unless I notify in advance... Is this a hassle?? Not 1 bit... Credit Unions FTW...