Online Credit Card Fraud – A Personal Tale

“It’ll never happen to me!” was the naive opinion I held for a number of years, while scoffing at news reports of less savvy users getting ripped off online.

Until I joined Microsoft that is…..

You see we get whizz-bang phones given to us, all Windows powered you understand, and I already had a whizz-bang phone so I had to get rid of it.

I stuck it up on eBay and all was well….for a while.

A few hours before the end of the auction I got an email from a chap in Delhi. Would I mind he bid on the phone and would I kindly consider shipping it to him in India. I checked his feedback and he’d bought about 15 phones from other eBayers, so I thought why not?

 The more the merrier!

He won the phone, paying about £350 or £30 more than it would have cost him to buy it brand new online. That’s where greed and arrogance had clouded my judgement. I smugly wrapped the phone up and winged it on its way to Delhi, thinking what a fool!

Three months later I had a chargeback on my credit card statement from PayPal. It turns out the guy had used a stolen credit card, or been in cahoots with someone else who denied ever sanctioning the charges. It was conveniently so late in the day I’d deleted all record of the transaction. PayPal didn’t want to know, so I was £350 and a whizz-bang phone down and feeling very silly.

Next was during PubCon in Vegas last year – it was a lucrative trip but I wasn’t expecting my debit card details to have been pilfered and a transaction for £147 to have been made for a cash withdrawal in Oregon. Where did they get my card number from? I only used it twice in Vegas!

Lastly and most weirdly involved Google.

I’ve used AdWords a number of times in the past, but checking my credit card statement for December I noticed a $5.10 charge in the US for their PPC product. Then it happened again in January for $10.32!!!

Such small numbers are obviously anathema to me, especially on my salary (not!) so I emailed Google to find out what on earth was going on!

Seventeen, yes SEVENTEEN emails and two phone calls later, they established it was fraud and advised me to close my credit card account and charge back the £7.50.

Now I consider myself quite savvy, spending as much time online and assessing websites as I do, you’d think I’d be able to spot something unsafe or dodgy.

But it can happen to ANYONE!!!

Couple of tips:

• If a deal looks too good to be true, then it probably is!
• Keep all your receipts and check them off your bank statements.
• For big items keep receipts or email confirmations filed away electronically for at least 6 months.
• Always check your statements for transactions you don’t recognise and act on them immediately.
• Don’t buy stuff or take money out when you’ve had a few beers (Vegas!) your judgement may be impared!