b_young

Bass Pro Shop called to confirm an order I placed with them and wanting to ship it to Massachusetts. I live in Arkansas so they thought it was strange. Lucky me they caught it quick. The individual ran up over $600 on my DEBIT card. I haven't had a credit card in 6 years. I know the name and address of the person responsible since they were having the stuff shipped to their home. Bass Pro said since it was my order they could give me that information before I cancelled the order.

I am suppose to contact the FBI tommorow for further investigation. And the bank is acting at this point that I will not loose any of the money as long as I itemize what I did not purchase. But anyone living in the Dorchester,MA area (Boston I think) and would like to pay someone a visit for me let me know.

Neil_B

Did you recently order from Bike Nashbar? There are a lot of people posting about fraudulent transactions appearing after purchases through that website.

making

I used my American Express in a Holiday Inn in St Louis several years ago. Someone got the number there went hog wild ordering weird stuff and had it all shipped to a place in Texas. I called American ex and gave them the address etc. They acted like they could not care less. They took everything off my card I told them to, no problem at all. But they sure did not care about pursueing the bad guys,

Mazama

I had a person steal a check out of the mail, wash off the ink somehow and put in a new name and amount with my signature on it. The bank cleared me and returned my money, but made no effort to find the culprit.

flip18436572

I have had three frauds in the last 8 months. Two on a debit card and one on a credit card. The first one nobody cared, but we didn't have to pay, the second time they had a security breach and we didn't get our new cards in time. The credit card one, was stopped in the first 1 minute and 37 seconds, because of 5 different charges in the short period of time and all for less than $2.00.

cyanemi

It happened to a friend of mine and she called the FBI. They said if they pursued all the credit card fraud that would take up all their time. They called it a "victimless crime".

steve2k

In the UK, if a retailer accepts a transaction that is later proved to be fraudulent they they are culpable. The banks give you back the money and get it back off the retailer. There's little incentive to catch the villians for the bank.

txvintage

Had a simialr incident back in February. My daughter and I went to Arkansas for a college recruiting trip and the night clerk at the hotel I stayed at stole all of my info, even used my cell # as a contact number.

He waited three weeks and then started trying to buy electronics off the net from major retailers and have it shipped to his home address under his own name. All of the purchases sent up red flags and every retailer called the contacft number he gave (my cell) to confirm the purchase due to the different state shipping address than my billing address.

The local police in Arkansas couldn't have cared less, but the state police did.

uctke283

I actually did make a recent purchase from nashbar and then 2 weeks ago had several fraudulent charges on my debit card: Borders Books, Netflix, some vitamin company and some skin creme company. I was able to get the charges reversed and a new card from the bank.

Who ever did this had my email address as well as the 3 digit security code from the back of the card....

CACycling

About a month ago, we got a call on a Sunday morning from our credit card company asking about some purchases we'd made in London. We told them it was fraud and they removed the charges, sent us new cards and sent a form to sign.

A week later I noticed a strange charge on my debit card. They removed the charge, deleted that card and got a new debit card.

A week after that I was unable to access my credit card online and called the company. They said it had been blocked because they were suspicious why I had authorized adding a cardholder to my account. The guy I "authorized" lived in Malasia! He'd charged stuff in London which they removed and sent us new cards again.

Hoping we're past all of this but I did notice a general lack of concern on the part of the financial institutions. They just close the account, remove the charges and send out the new cards.

sstorkel

I just had the same thing happen! Several fraudulent purchases showed up on my debit card. I use it at the gas station, the supermarket... and on-line bike purchases. Haven't ordered from Nasbar for quite a while, though. Getting the money back seems like a bit of a hassle. Think I'll start using the debit card for local stuff only, put everything else on a credit card, and automatically pay it off at the end of each month.

127.0.0.1

Dorchester Mass is where all the murders happen in Boston. NO ONE is gonna help you except Mass State Police, whom you should have contacted already.

CliftonGK1

I see quite a few people mentioning Nashbar, and I'll second (or third/fourth) the opinion; they're a likely culprit for where a cyclist could have incurred false charges.

To their credit, it's not Nashbar's fault. It was an issue with their payment processor: Heartland Payment Systems. My credit union issued me a new card about a month ago because I bought something from Nashbar, and they (the CU) was made aware of the breach at Heartland, so they issued their clients new cards regardless of whether fraudulent charges were made.

Now, to negate anything good I've implied about Nashbar, here's the really bad thing about them: Has anyone placed an order with them and then started receiving phone calls about a "free" $40.00 value gas-card that you can use at any station?
Well... It turns out that Nashbar is the one who sold that telemarketing firm our information. The worst part is that it wasn't just the regular name, addy, phone, email. I went through the whole spiel on the phone with the guy just to see what the catch was. He said that I'd be enrolled in some opt-out program which "would charge monthly to the credit card ending in XXXX."
Yeah, he already had my CC number. After much arguing, I got to speak with a supervisor at the company who admitted that they had essentially purchased customer records from a number of vendors, which included credit card information.

So, long story short: If you bought anything that went through Heartland Payment Systems credit processing, check your account, cancel the card and get a new one issued.

Neil_B

By "a lot", I mean two separate threads in General Cycling, and at least one post on Touring. The main names mentioned are Bike Nashbar and Niagra Bicycle. The problems might stem from credit card processor Hartland, which discovered a data security breach in January.

A couple of posters have suggested the following ways to limit their risk in the future:

- maintain a single credit card for online purchases, and just online purchases.

- have single-use virtual card numbers issued for each online purchase. Many credit card companies have this feature, and Paypal does as well.

kenseth03

This happened to me after I purchased something from Nashbar. I contacted the police and they basically said it wasn't enough money involved to prosecute the person who I found for them.

Abacus

I keep a dedicated debit card exclusively for online transactions. I transfer money into the debit card as and when I buy stuff. That mimimizes my exposure and means that if anybody tries to use the card there most likely will not be funds available to them.

b_young

I have not purchased from Nashbar.

I contacted the local police and they said I would have to contact the Boston PD. The Boston PD said the local police would have to take the report or I would have to file it in person. Then the local PD said contact the FBI because it would end up with them anyway. The FBI said the local PD would have to start the process. The local PD then made an incident report and said they would give it to Boston.

So basically, nobody cares. Nobody wants to do anything about it and the bank will refund me. Sounds like I should start trying to find peoples card numbers myself. It may be the beginning of a new business.

Just to let you know, the last purchase I made with the card was at a Flying J gas station at the pump. The last online purchase was on MS150. I am on a team and raising money. Someone gave me cash and so I put it in with my card. I have not contacted MS yet, I need to do that just so they are aware. I have never had problems with them in the past. We had a seperate account just for online purchases but something started looking fishy with it so we closed it. I need to open another. I found out that even though it was my main account, they only had access to the card so it wasn't a huge deal as long as I don't run out of money before payday.

Thanks for the replies and letting me vent.

flytrap

When this happened to me the local police lost interest, but the US Postal inspector took it on. They keep a database with info such as the address in Dorchester. You may try them at your location and in Boston.

After our Penney's card was compromised they canceled and sent me another - to the perp's house! He went right out and used it at the mall.

jboyd

I am a Nazi about my $$. When I got divorced 10 years ago, I took all of my credit cards and did a plastectomy and then paid everything off. Since then I have operated on a couple of debit cards, with what I guess is better then average success regarding theft. I do however check my account several times a day.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up one morning and checked my accounts and saw a charge I did not recognize. It appeared that I had purchased $150 in iTunes overnight. I am an Ambien addict, so I checked my emails to make sure that it really was not me (I have a friend who is an Ambien abuser as well and he actually did purchase $45 worth of Hall & Oats songs one night )

Anyway, I called my bank and canceled the card, called iTunes who told me they had a lot of this lately and were nice enough to reverse the charges, so I did not have to go into dispute to get my $ back.

Wouldn't you love the find the &%$#@ who did something like that?

making

So did you like the music?

Nocturnal

Ha! I live in Boston and second the thought that even though I'm a Clyde...Dorchester ain't pretty

ScrubJ

Welcome to my world. I've spent the last three months trying to clear up issues with Capital One and Bank of America over this stuff. My coworker just got snagged this past month too. Expect to see more of this.

b_young

8-10 years ago I lived in St. Louis and someone ran up $230 worth of band candy on my credit card. Must have had a sweet tooth. That was the last day I have had a credit card. Debit cards are nice and needed for Reservations. But maybe I will go back to cash and checks on everything else.

So all you Boston people, what is say, Fenton St. in Dorchester like??

And what nationality is Nguyen? I have never heard of a last name like that in my life? I can't even pronounce it.

Tom Stormcrowe

That would be Vietnamese

Wogster

Gas stations are one of the worst, it was discovered that some less then honest gas station clerks point the security camera at the PIN pad, then use an extra gizmo that scans your card, once they have your PIN and card data, they have your money. If using a debit card, ALWAYS cover the pin pad with your other hand and hold it close enough to you that nobody can see what your pressing, when entering your PIN. This should be S.O.P. anywhere you use your card, this makes it habit. If your debit card does get compromised, then change the PIN before they send you a new card, if possible, or immediately after you get the new card. Never use the same number sequence for other things, like a combination bike lock.

With credit cards, safest is to not use one. Actually best is to use cash, for online purchases, get your order to the point of the credit card entry, print a copy of the order, then cancel the order. Send your printed order by snail mall with a postal money order. ft tough to commit fraud with those