Card fraud

Feline

I have been shopping online since 1997 without any problems at all until the last 4 months.
The problem began with 7 fraudulent transactions appearing on the card I use for all purchases. It was blocked and reissued so no real drama. During the time I couldn't use it I had to use my debit card for online shopping a few times. 2 months later some whopping fraudulent transactions appeared on this card the day after I was paid, and my wages were all gone in a matter of hours. Again the bank credited the money pretty quickly and reissued the card, but it left me in a difficult position with no access to my cash for about a week and no debit card to use.

Those 2 episodes were annoying, inconvenient and could have been coincidental. But today I was awoken by another of my card companies, asking if I had just tried to make 2 very large transactions. I had not. There was a letter in the post from a 4th bank asking me to phone and confirm some transactions, I had not made them.

So basically 4 different cards that are all still safely in my possession have all had their details somehow compromised in the last few weeks. I use a full paid version of Bullguard anti-virus, anti-spam, firewall. I never respond to stupid phising scam emails. I only ever enter my details on secure sites belonging to big companies I know and trust.

There are only 2 things I can think of that I am doing differently in the past few months. 1. I am using Google Chrome as a browser (which I like). 2. I am using the TopCashBack website as recommended by Martin to navigate to some of the sites I am shopping with.

Because of the range of cards affected I now know something must have leaked card info somehow from my computer. I just don't know how or when. The computer is scanned regularly by Bullguard. What can I do to protect myself?

[Deleted User]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging

just a thought.

Consumerist

I've heard good things on this site's forums regarding Malwarebytes anti-malware program.

Download, install and run it. Many reports suggest that if Malwarebytes doesn't find any malware then probably nothing will.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

Edit
It's free.

PNPSUKNET

run adware se, sounds like you have spyware.

Feline

Thanks for the info

I am currently doing the malwarebytes full scan, it has been running for nearly 6 hours! I am going to go to bed and leave it to it.. I have a 1TB hard drive full of all kinds fo stuff :beer:

DCFC79

Feline wrote: »

Thanks for the info

I am currently doing the malwarebytes full scan, it has been running for nearly 6 hours! I am going to go to bed and leave it to it.. I have a 1TB hard drive full of all kinds fo stuff :beer:

might be a good idea to post on the techie board

Tao81

strikes me from reading OP that the banks seem to be pretty well informed of what's happening, considering how rapidly they reimbursed the cardholder following more than one of these incidents!

Good Luck. I hope you get it sorted soon.

VictimOfImpersonation

Yes I agree with Tao81, and that probably means it is not a security breach on your pc at all. See my other posts on card fraud. Have you asked the banks if anyone has called them pretending to be you before the fraudulent transactions occurred e.g. their lost and stolen lines, triggering new cards and perhaps even PINs? All it takes then is a postal intercept to start hitting your accounts hard inside a week of the fraudster's call to the bank.

Mind you, the debit card/current account problem is one not seen as frequently as credit card account takeovers.

Could all have started with someone getting hold of your full CRA file fraudulently. Once they have that, you'd be surprised how little else they need to start creating havoc. Check with Equifax, Experian and CallCredit to see if there has been any attempt to create accounts with each of them that you did not know about.

Hope you get to the bottom of it.

Feline

Malwarebytes found 3 things it thought were malware so those are now gone, thanks for the advice on that. :T:T

The thing is that I know none of the cards have been reissued to a new address etc. because most of my banking is online and I look at my account details often. All of the fraudulent transactions involved use of the card number not an actual card. The first series of fraud I was sent a print out of the actual transactions since the retailer (Tucows) had responded to Egg saying their terms were non-refundable. The person who had used my card details didn't even know my name. They were a Virgin media customer in the Manchester area from the IP address that was logged, and they had bought 7 domains with email and hosting on my card. What gets me is that the transaction went through at all given that the fraudster didn't know my name or address, and it is a card registered with the extra layer of security for online use too.

The first 2 cards that were affected I spotted the transactions myself very quickly and instantly cancelled the cards, that is why the banks refunded quickly. The 2 recent ones from this week though the frausters had failed and the banks involved actually contacted me to check it wasn't me doing it. That was more impressive than what happened the first 2 times. M&S told me that they thought the first transaction was a 'test transaction', not sure what that means, but later that day someone tried to spend £800 at Currys online on it. The worrying thing is, that card has a £30,000 credit limit on it, imagine what you could do with that if you were a criminal :doh:

Hax

Test transactions are normally for small amounts and to check that they card is "live" and they have the correct details to use it. If the test transactions go through successfully, the fraudsters will then try and hit the card with a "large" transaction - such an £800 TV from Currys!

It's somewhat reassuring that the CC companies are so pro-actively checking for fraudulent transactions and not just leaving the cardholder to foot the bill!