Card charged for $0, same company now for $9.95

I have alerts on all of my accounts (checking, credit, etc).  Yesterday I received an alert that my credit card was charged, card not present, for $0.  I didn't recognize the company, one of those learning websites for kids, and when I looked them up I had not signed up for anything with them.  A zero charge is likely the start of a free trial where they just ding the card to make sure it is valid before giving you access to their program.  Luckily I had the alerts set up, because looking at the "activity" portion of the credit card website it did NOT show up since there was no actual charge, so if I only went by statements I never would have known the card was being used until actual charges were made.  The only reason I received the alert is because I signed up for any and every alert possible, including "card not present" regardless of the amount charged.

I called the credit card company, and they agreed that it looked suspicious even without money being charged, and are changing my card number as a precaution.  I'm wondering if someone didn't use the card that way to check if it was "live" before using it for other purchases, since I don't think most people would steal a card number just to get access to an educational website.

The last time my card number was lifted it was used to send a couple of hundred dollars worth of care packages to a prison.  angry   In that case I also caught it in time and the charges were reversed.


My son had his account hacked twice.  Both times they charged one or two dollars first to see if it was activated.  When those charges went through they started charging hundreds of dollars at a time.  The bank made good on it and refunded his money.


I was annoyed that the bank didn't investigate further.  Purchase were overseas but were being shipped to an address which should have been investigated.  


Same initial experience as Eric B:  a couple of times someone(s) has charged our card just $2 or $3, in this case from I think Dakota somewhere. 

Different outcome, though, because our card company called us right away to ask about the charges, & when we confirmed it wasn't us, they sent a new card/number.  For a while there we were getting a new number every year or so because of various ?hacks?. 

I'm sort of surprised the card companies didn't act (sooner) on behalf of spontaneous and Eric B....

I'm always delighted to hear from the card company's fraud department, even though waiting for the new card can be a (tiny) inconvenience.



Had a meal at a Texas style steakhouse with  PNC Visa debit card.  Soon afterward a preliminary

charge showed on my statement for several hundred dollars worth of golfing equipment.

Called PNC customer service.   The attempted charge was made to a Texas Sporting good company.

PNC had already caught the fraud and put a stop payment on it.   They gave me some but very limited information.   Told me that both them and the store were conducting their own investigation

At least they could have tried to charge baseball equiptment..






mjc said:


I'm sort of surprised the card companies didn't act (sooner) on behalf of spontaneous and Eric B....
I'm always delighted to hear from the card company's fraud department, even though waiting for the new card can be a (tiny) inconvenience.



 I don't know what sort of algorithm they use to determine what is or is not suspicious.  I've had charges that were legitimately mine get flagged, and I've had charges that were not mine that I caught.  

The one time a suspicious charge was caught by an algorithm was when Bank of America flagged some charges at a  Toys R Us in northern NJ.  The odd thing is, since it was only about half an hour away from where I live, it actually could have been us, and I even waited to check in with my spouse to make sure he hadn't stopped at Toys R Us (his job takes him over half the state at times) before confirming that they were not my charges. 

But for the most part the algorithms seem wonky.  I'm catching fraudulent charges, meanwhile Bank of America recently cut off my card because I bought gas in Maplewood a few too many times since I no longer live there. Though even in that case I agree that the minor inconvenience of having to call and confirm that I was indeed buying fuel in Maplewood it is worth it to not have someone drain my account.


My son's card was a Valley National debit card.  The fraudulent charges were made on either eBay or Amazon (I don't remember now) but it was a website he purchased from many times before.  That, plus it was the weekend, is why I think they went through.   My son went to the atm on Sunday morning and noticed his balance was not right and called immediately.


He believes he was hacked when he used his card for grub hub. 


spontaneous, yes, our card company has called (or blocked the card) about legitimate charges sometimes too.  In particular, i used to sit down at the end of December and pound out a series of contributions, & at some point they'd block the card, even though the charges were coming from the usual home computer.  now, i would call to alert them before starting. 

i don't think we've ever caught a totally fake charge on our own, just errors/duplicates/unauthorized repeat charges from companies we had actually ordered from.  Congrats on being so watchful!!


This is a reason I like using budgeting software. Having to categorize each transaction has kept me alert to fishy activity, and over three years YNAB has more than paid for itself. I probably would have noticed on my own the $4,000 charge someone rang up at a Texas Nordstrom Rack, for example, but I probably would have overlooked a $100 charge for a Starbucks gift card that appeared shortly after I swiped my card at a highway rest stop. 


We had visited friends in the Poconos Memorial Day a few years ago and stopped at a gas station nearby since we were almost empty. Our card was declined at the register (you go inside and pay before pumping). Odd. We had $10 cash, which was enough to get home on. The next week or so, we get a call from the CC fraud dept about some charges. They were for auto parts places. One was a charge then immediate return of the same amount. I did check with my husband if he ordered anything like that. They issued a new card. We ended up getting something they ordered, a car battery, since I guess they forgot to change the shipping address when they fraudulently made the purchase. The charges were only a few hundred here and there. I thought it was interesting that never questioned the $850 charge to a tile company in Miami when we were redoing our kitchen.


With Citibank, the card with the $0 charge, I get notifications the moment the card is used.  Since I almost never use that card for anything getting the alert did catch my attention.  I have similar alerts for Bank of America, but they don’t come through right away, the delay is anywhere from 1-24 hours.  And some charges don’t trigger an alert at all.  I wish that Bank of America would work on that 


About 6 months ago we caught one of these suspicious small charges we had not made. Went through the usual dance:  notified card company, got new number and card.  This week we got a letter from the card company notifying us they had investigated and closed the investigation. Of course, we have no idea if they found who did it etc.


However, this was a better experience than the last time this happened.  Then, card company took off fraudulent charges but continued to Bill us for new, multiple charges for the same overseas toll road and some sort of online game usage.  It took multiple notifications before we no longer saw these types of charges.


I always ask. (I really wanted to know how anybody could spend over $4,000 in a Nordstrom Rack, for example.) But there's a limit. I may never learn whether the person who used my card to buy eight memberships to match.com in Brazil ever found a date. 


Today I received an alert that my card was charged for $9.95, same company as the zero charge from last month.  I called and apparently when they close a card number they transfer all recurring charges to the new number.  When I had called last month I even told them that the zero charge was likely the free trial period, and that they were going to start regular charges, yet they didn't flag this charge to not be transferred over to the new account.  The person from Citibank says maybe I can call AdaptedMind to cancel the account.  Wow, that's helpful.  Since I'm not the one who opened the account at AdaptedMind I won't have any account information for them to look up.  This is a fraudulent charge, why do I need to be the one to start calling companies to dispute charges, I though that was what Citibank did.  I tried to do my part by calling within minutes, literally minutes, of receiving the notice of a charge that I recognized as fraudulent.  You'd think they'd care more considering how much fraudulent charges cost the credit card companies.

By the end of the phone call I was told I have to wait 3-5 business days for it to clear, and then I can dispute it.  I then went online, same information.  Stupid.


Sorry to hear this is still ongoing, spontaneous.  LOL   I hope it will be resolved soon, though the phone call you described was not promising!

(Seems as though "transfer all recurring charges to the new number" is a convenience with a serious downside!  I have always had to call the companies with recurring charges to update the number, and now i'm glad.)


spontaneous said:
Today I received an alert that my card was charged for $9.95, same company as the zero charge from last month.  I called and apparently when they close a card number they transfer all recurring charges to the new number.  When I had called last month I even told them that the zero charge was likely the free trial period, and that they were going to start regular charges, yet they didn't flag this charge to not be transferred over to the new account.  The person from Citibank says maybe I can call AdaptedMind to cancel the account.  Wow, that's helpful.  Since I'm not the one who opened the account at AdaptedMind I won't have any account information for them to look up.  This is a fraudulent charge, why do I need to be the one to start calling companies to dispute charges, I though that was what Citibank did.  I tried to do my part by calling within minutes, literally minutes, of receiving the notice of a charge that I recognized as fraudulent.  You'd think they'd care more considering how much fraudulent charges cost the credit card companies.
By the end of the phone call I was told I have to wait 3-5 business days for it to clear, and then I can dispute it.  I then went online, same information.  Stupid.

Weird.

I have a Citi double cash card. When I had a fraudulent charge, they immediately canceled our cards and issued replacements with different numbers. I was told all recurring charges, like Netflix, had to be reentered using the new card number because recurring and any new charges on the old card will not be authorized.


My business credit card had some suspicious charges that were from Texas.  Something like $7 at a gas station and something else small. The CC company called me and they froze the account and sent me a new card.  

Same story as above, they try a small charge first and then if the card works they go big.


from Bob Roe:  I had a fraudulent credit car charge for two round trip airplane tickets from San Francisco to Las Vegas.   They were made by a travel agent in Atlanta.   The credit card company made good and deducted the charges.

PS:  Please do not tell my wife.  (Just kidding honey.)  

Actually, in this computer/electronic world we live in, you must always be on guard.  It is like the wild west.  


Last time I had a problem with a card the company (AmEx IIRC) didn't automatically move all recurring charges, but did provide a listing of them so I could move each other on my own.  Ended up canceling one or two small ones because I’d forgotten about them and really didn’t need them any longer.  


As to follow ups on fraudulent charges, a few hundred bucks won’t generally force a followup... it’s simply not worth it and in most cases is just cheaper to refund them and move on.  If anything the merchant may just get dinged for accepting the card number depending on the circumstance, and the card/bank isn’t thus ultimately out the cash anyway. Only time I can recall a fraud dept chasing some down was when someone charged several thousand dollars in two charges and I’d already had the initial conversation with the merchant and had info to provide. 


I was getting some fraudulent charges through iTunes from a website that is a known scam.  I couldn't figure out how to address it through iTunes and Amex refused to cancel the charges after their "investigation."  I finally got them to cancel some of the charges after accusing them of fraud as well.



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