For the last seven years or so, during every calendar year, my personal credit card gets compromised and someone attempts a fraudulent charge, . Happened yesterday again. My bank does an excellent job of detecting these things and contacts me immediately and they are killed on the spot. I just have to put up with the minor pain of getting a new number and waiting for a replacement card.

I do use it to buy on-line but at only a handful of websites. My wife, who does much more on-line shopping than me, has not had her card compromised in the same seven year period.

Is this happening once a year now about the norm for most people or is something I need to take care of happening?

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Gas stations

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Card skimmer at a random gas station while on a road trip was the last time this happened. Once a year seems higher than average. Probably once ever 4-5 years sounds about right. Been trying to use pumps with wireless pay at the pump but that's not always available in bfe.

I know the first one 7 years ago was a skimmer at a gas station in Newark, NJ. One was a stolen wallet, three years ago. The other five and most recent, I have no idea. The funny thing was a week ago I was pleased that my last card had lasted 14 months and then yesterday happened.

I'd also suspect paying with a card at a restaurant... I could see a scammer paying a server a few bucks for every card they swipe through a skimmer and not even feel guilty bc they rationalize the bank pays for it not the customer.

Happens about once a year to us, but three times this year. The second and third time were the most creative. They had put in the first time as a recurring charge so even though the charge was disputed Citi notified them of the new card number. It was peak stupidity on the part of citi.

A few things I have learned.

All the charges were to pay bills in the same person in Baton Rogue's name. Police didn't seem to care at all when she said it wasn't her that paid her bills.

At&t and the Motel 6 in Vegas responded to the dispute with generic information to verify that the charge back was invalid. They hope that you won't respond to the letter asking you to dispute the information they provided.

I carried Chase Sapphire Visa as my primary card for close to 10 years and it was compromised about once a year. I was always alerted quickly to the fraud and just had to go through the inconvenience of getting a new card. In early '22 I switched to Amex as my primary card and it hasn't been compromised yet.

Fraud is too easy. Anyone with your card can photo both sides, google to get your address, and start charging.

I don't let mine get out of sight which means using cash at fast food places and restaurants. Having a CC billing address different from the home address and zip code supposedly helps also.

Like most things for big companies, individual fraud is easier to cleanup than widescale prevention/protection.

Big Baccala said:

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I quit using credit cards at gas stations. Downloaded several apps, Chevron, Exxon etc and now only use those to pay. Also, last time my cc was compromised, I found out that banks do not always check to see if card was stored in an app, for example Uber. Some will auto update when a new card is issued. My bank found my card had been updated in an app. Once removed they cancelled and sent me another card.

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Same.

We just use the WalMart + app and you pay directly through your app at Exxon. Knock on wood, but have only had one issue since we started this several years ago.

The issue we had was with Amazon. No idea how they did it, but someone managed to create an account with my name, address, credit card, etc. Only difference was the phone # and email. Because they were different I could never get Amazon to assist with closing the account as they couldn't verify it was me. Amex was very helpful in dealing with all the issues. However, I realized a new "convenience" of credit cards that was also causing an issue. When you get a new cc #, amex would still recognize all recurring charges on the old cc#. Well, Amazon was a recurring charge so they were still allowing those charges until I talked to someone, realized the issue, and had them cancel that number completely.

For a while we got CC stolen about once every 3-4 years about a decade ago.

More recently though, we've been lucky. Have not had any issues and we use our CCs on _everything_, actually had one of the cards age out to it's expiration and get replaced by the company.

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Is this happening once a year now about the norm for most people or is something I need to take care of happening?

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I think this has happened like to me twice, maybe three times in my 20+ years as an adult.

Stay off the adult sites.

Our situation has been very similar . It seems to happen every yr for the last several years . Just had to cancel a card and get a new one on the way yesterday. My wife spent almost 2 hrs on the phone going through 3 months of bills with the bank rep. She asked him why this seems to happen so often and he said it's just a very , very common occurrence these days.

Cybercrime results in an annual loss of $12.5 billion cash per latest statistics. Total cost is multiples higher when factoring in costs to fight it, productivity costs, etc. Common folks need to guard against cybercrime like the big-time, persistent threat that it is.

I had this problem for a while, but ever since everyone moved to the handheld readers and I've moved to using the tap to pay function I haven't had it happen (knock on wood).

but I did have somebody get ahold of one of my business checks and then start printing fraudulent checks on that account. It's ridiculous how easy it is to make fraudulent checks. Filed a police report but have never once spoke to the detective assigned to my case.

Mas89 said:

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Fraud is too easy. Anyone with your card can photo both sides, google to get your address, and start charging.

I don't let mine get out of sight which means using cash at fast food places and restaurants. Having a CC billing address different from the home address and zip code supposedly helps also.

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Like a PO box?

Mas89 said:

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. Anyone with your card can photo both sides, google to get your address, and start charging.

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how does this work?
You mean based on name alone?

Common name for the win I guess, because not gonna be easy finding my address with googling my name

More and more, I only use a credit card for smaller transactions if I don't have cash. It has to be at least $50 before I even consider using a credit card.

For gas, I have a customer card issued by the owner of the gas station. It is good nowhere but that one station.

When I want cash, I will typically go to the bank and withdraw the money in person. Usually $20 bills in multiples of $500 so that each pack of $500 has the band around it. And then store all but the current $500 pack for easy access. I think I've only been to an ATM once or twice in the last three or four years.

One other thing I do with credit cards is provide a separate e-mail address for each credit card and that e-mail address is not shared with anyone but that credit card. If I get an e-mail about a suspicious transaction and it is not to the specific e-mail address I use for that credit card, then I am immediately on alert that the notice is probably a scam.

One thing that I have considered for on-line use is the one-time cards from privacy.com. I actually opened a privacy.com account but found out that they want it tied directory to a bank account instead of a regular credit card. I'm considering opening up a second bank account with about one month's expected funds and using that for the privacy.com. That way, if something were to happen (unlikely, but possible), they could only get out what is in that limited account.

The card issuer polices excessive/fraudulent chargebacks.

They've done the math on what they deem acceptable "working of the system".

Nowadays, you need to be very careful with all your accounts, especially if you're a business owner. I'm thinking about starting something, and now I'm in the planning stage. It's more complicated than I expected, and I need to read a lot of info to understand some aspects. Here is one page https://dashdevs.com/open-banking-solutions/ which provided me with a lot of new info about open banking, why it's good for business and so on. You have to be very careful when it comes to financial things and choose only reliable services, so after reading that info, I have a lot to consider.

I was getting my credit card info stolen every few months and then i switched to an RFID blocking wallet. The number of times I see a fraudulent charge has dropped to every couple of years.

Yes, a P.O. Box in a different zip code than your home address. Billing zip different from home zip.

You give your card thru the window at Taco Bell. The employee has her phone camera recording and runs both sides of your card across the camera. Just out of your view as you sit in your car/ truck. Now she has your name, full account number, and 3 digit security code recorded. You are in your home neighborhood in Plano, etc so she googles your name and city to get your home address and zip code.
Online shopping spree soon. I only use a card when it doesn't leave my eyesight. Many stores in our area have changed to this like chicfilet using the cc machine in the window.

We were in London recently and merchants/ employees were not allowed to touch your cc. Even at restaurants they bring the card reader to your table. All tap processors.

Mas89 said:

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You are in your home neighborhood in Plano, etc so she googles your name and city to get your home address and zip code.
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yeh, I already mentioned, that isn't happening either my name.
My house isn't in my name, and, based on my experience at my local liquor store, there are 3 others with my same name lol. That's just the ones with a reward acct at that liquor store.

I find it somewhat disturbing that every single post on credit card theft deals with incidence of theft and avenues to prevent fraud. Not one damn word about the sorry azz peope who steal cards, card numbers and otherwise engage in theft that appears to have no consequence or punishment. 10 year first offense and no early release would stop this stuff in its tracks. When we get to the point of trying to evade crime instead of punishing it, the nation and its culture are toast.

They should be drawn and quartered but soft on crime people like you won't let it happen.

2-3 years ago, I had to request new cards due to an attempted unauthorized charge.

Then, when the replacement cards were still in the mail, the bank called me to ask if I had started using them yet. Somehow, the new numbers were stolen while still sealed in the envelope. They did show up the next day and the envelope looked pristine.

The bank sent a 2nd set of replacement cards and (knock on wood), I'm still using them.

I do agree with everyone saying to use tap to pay as often as possible.

Fraud is too easy. Anyone with your card can photo both sides, google to get your address, and start charging.

I don't let mine get out of my sight .

dallasiteinsa02 said:

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Happens about once a year to us, but three times this year. The second and third time were the most creative. They had put in the first time as a recurring charge so even though the charge was disputed Citi notified them of the new card number. It was peak stupidity on the part of citi.

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I was wondering how that happens. My kid got one compromised and then the new one was used to charge stuff BEFORE she even got it in the mail.