My bank account was just emptied

[Wondermonkey]

Just got a call from Commerce Bank's Visa Fraud Protection line asking me to verify that I just spent $4800 worth of charges at a truck gas station in Florida. I had to check my calendar, but after I did, I told them it wasn't me.

They put a fraud lock on my Debit Card and canceled it, but I have to wait until the charges clear before I can dispute them. So right now, there's just a sweet $4800 pending charge on my bank's site.

This happened two years ago, someone in Florida used Noelle's card to buy $2600 worth of something at Publix.

It's so much less annoying when it isn't your bank account cash being effed with. Steal my actual credit card number, I don't give a crap about that, there's no real cash involved!

At least we keep the checking account low and transfer most into savings.

Sigh. Who else has been electronically robbed?

[Quo]

Man, that sucks!!!

I've had the little thieves... a series of $50 charges on my business card that just randomly appeared and I had to contest, but nothing big like that!

[Wondermonkey]

It went up as I typing that. Nothing like real time cash loss you can watch!

[Snake1399]

wow, that really sucks. i've had a couple of minor ones post to my account, from California no less when i live in Michigan. but i disputed and they removed em pretty quick. The bigger question might be, what in the hell can you buy with 4,800 at a truck stop????

[namehater]

$4800 and that is keeping your checking account on the low!? take one of your zeros away and thats my checking on a high! thieves dont wanna f' with my broke ass, but that does suck, hopefully it all gets resolved

my brother had his debit card used to buy a couple world of warcraft accounts and a couple 1yr subscriptions, still not up to your level, but its gotta suck regardless

any idea how your information got out there?

[pickleL7]

WTF,that sux Ive had some small time stuff happen but nothing like that.Sorry man

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Snake1399

The bigger question might be, what in the hell can you buy with 4,800 at a truck stop????

I have no idea. It's a Fleet One Truck Gas according to the online site. I'm thinking they may have gassed up a shitload of trucks? I have no idea. Maybe they paid Peench for lap dances, he still does that shit down in Florida you know!

[AZRaiderH8r]

Wow, that really sucks man. I hate that you have to wait for it to be resolved. It's great that you've got the savings account as a backup though.

After we were robbed last Xmas, we had a lot of fraud going on with our bank and credit cards. We had to cancel all of them, which was a real nuisance. My personal favorite was someone trying to buy $300 worth of stuff at 1-800-FLOWERS online. But, they wouldn't tell me or the police who was trying to use our card. Why do they give more protection to the criminals then the victims of the crime?

[Serren]

Something similar happened to me a few months ago. Unknown to me, someone used my debit card number to purchase online sunglasses and swimwear. Then the next day they attempted to purchase a cruise or something from a travel agency for over $1,400.

Anyway, I was at Costco trying to use my debit card and my card was denied. I thought this was odd as I knew I had money. I thought this might be because of an earlier mishap (see below) that was now cleared up. So I get out of line and call my bank. They see nothing wrong, and I have adequate fundage. The bank lady tells me its Costco's fault. I didn’t think so, as people before and after me were swiping happily away. I was can you look further? Oh yeah, there is one more place to look, the fraud section! And this was when I found out I was now also a victim, another statistic.

The good thing was that my bank figured out somehow that I was under "attack" and managed to freeze or get a refund on the $1,400 in travel expenses. The impact on this for me was that all my cards with this bank, debit and credit were all cancelled at the moment fraud was suspected. This is a good thing, but a few days had passed and they never notified me. I had to call them.

They returned my money after a few days, but it took about two weeks to get my new debit and credit cards. This was a huge bummer not having plastic in my wallet! Cash sucks...

Wonder, hopefully your bank will front YOUR money back to you quickly like mine did. I guess it all depends on the rules they have and such. I don't think the banks even chase these bastards down which sucks. I called the travel agency where my money was "used" and they had names and numbers and such. They wouldn’t give the info to me, but they said they would give it to the police if they were to call. I wanted to call these bastards and yell at them myself! I don’t think anything ever happened though.


(A couple weeks prior I accidentally paid my mortgage twice, overdrafting my checking account by a few thousand dollars! For over a week, every time I used my debit card, I was adding a $35 service fee to each transaction. $3.48 snack and soda at school was actually $38.48! I think I had about 15 overdraft charges, so over $500 bucks! They "kindly" removed some of them, but I was still forced to pay about $300 in the end.)

[Lord Sam]

Dang that sucks! On a much smaller scale I had someone use my credit card number to pay an electric bill in Georgia and purchased some Steelers jerseys at NFL.com. It got resolved quickly and in fact the bank notified me what was going on first.

The worst part, of course, is that I get catalogues from nfl.com all the time featuring Pittsburgh Steelers stuff. Ugh! I can't stand it!!!!

[BrewCityUpstart]

Originally Posted by Wondermonkey

Just got a call from Commerce Bank's Visa Fraud Protection line asking me to verify that I just spent $4800 worth of charges at a truck gas station in Florida.

Man, thats one expensive Lot Lizard!

I had my credit card e-stolen a couple years back.

[ZoomZoom71]

Sorry to hear about it, Wonder. Sucks, for sure.

I think in our 2nd year of marriage, my wife left her debit card at a gas station. I think the people only spent about $150, and our bank fronted the money during the investigation.

[WormholeXtreme]

Crap!
I'm surprised they would even let that transaction go through. I know with AMEX if you have certain spending habits and suddenly purchase something very expensive at a different area they will make the merchant call a number and talk to the card holder to verify it is the card holder. i've had this happen to me a couple of times while traveling when i had to purchase several thousand in equipment or plane tickets.. A PITA but I guess sometimes necessary.
As long as you're covered though for the fraudulent spending, no worries.
The only time I had someone steal a card number was from a Pizza hut. I had it happen twice with my AMEX card and some dumbasss employee started charging pizzas to the card. I assume they did that and took the money. The weird thing was that Pizza Hut didn't seem too concerned that an employee stole my card number twice and used it. They stole it from in store purchases I made. I only use cash there now which i hate to do since I don't like carrying cash.. I'd rather use my credit cards than anything else. At least I can earn reward points with my AMEX card.

[Serren]

The odd thing about this type of crime is that is feels so remote and the criminal is just some unknown person that I never felt like a victim or anything. What are we going to do? Stop using debit/credit cards? Not likely. It's almost like a fact of life. I think that is why the banks do not care. It would probably cost them more money chasing down these losers then they lost to the fraud.

Hopefully your bank will not hold that money for long and you will be able to get beyond this with just a slight inconvenience. Dont take this stuff personal.

[Old-School Guy]

What the hell?!! Did an independent trucker fill-up his fuel tanker? Snake is right - how do you spend that much money at a truck stop?!

I'm to hear about that, Wondermonkey. It's not just the amount... it's also the feeling of being violated! If this person (or people) get caught... let's hope they get violated in prison!!!

[Epyon MX]

Man, that sucks. All speed in getting your money back.

I've had a couple of flags thrown up by the credit card company. But that was only when I flew to Arizona on a company flight and started spending money there and then flew back the next day.

[Wondermonkey]

Yeah, it's annoying. I'm actually more interested in actually finding out what the hell they spent the money on, you know? I'm just curious.

We're also dumping Commerce bank. This has happened twice in two years and both times in Florida? Too coincidental. I have no doubt we'll get out money back, but I think they've been breached and aren't owning up to everything.

[Desi Cuse]

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully this mess will clear up soon.

[Gordon]

Kind of curious on your credit cards stuff down in the States. Don't they have pin numbers that need to be used? Sounds logical that they should be.

[Peench]

Oh man, that sucks Wonder. Sorry to hear about that. You are probably right on the commerce bank breach thing. Sucks that they are making it more of a pain for you.

I had my wallet stolen out of my office years ago during work hours. And my office was in the back. Apparently no one saw whoever did it. I got a call at my office shortly thereafter from Discover (who has awesome fraud protection and real time monitoring) asking me if I had just spent $2k at Target. I said, nope, I've been working, and then realized someone had stolen my ish.

Here's the kicker - I never sign my cards and had my license and one credit card in a different location. I called one of the stores within 15 mins of the thieves leaving and asked them about it. I asked them point blank: "Did you check their ID?" Their response "Yes." WTF? Well who'se ID were they using because it sure as hell wasn't mine?!?

I also swear off those debit visa card things for this reason (among others). I'd rather just use a credit card and have the protection there, then have someone have access to my cash. I don't keep much money in my savings account at my bank (online accounts like IGN have higher returns), but I'd rather have as few entry points as possible to my funds.

Good luck on getting it resolved. That really sucks man.