I logged into my Capital One online account summary today and noticed that my "available credit" was showing $0.00 even though my account actually has a credit balance of $99.95 from a recent merchandise return. I called them to find out what was up and was told that there had been 3 charges on my account yesterday for a total of $6400 and another charge today for $586. This even though my credit limit on that account is $6500. I did not make or authorize any of these charges. They told me that I shouldn't close the account yet because no more charges will be approved on the account and they also said that since right now these are just authorizations I can't dispute them until the charge actually hits my account. I immediately called all of my other card issuers and had them cancel the accounts and issue me new cards with new acct. #'s. I have not lost my card... it is still sitting in my wallet, but I am contemplating going online to Cap One and reporting the card Lost/Stolen even though the Cap One CSR said this wasn't necessary. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me and I'm kind of shaken up about it and not sure how to proceed. I already checked my Experian and Equifax reports and there haven't been any inquiries which is good. Going to call TU tomorrow and check. Any advice or personal experiences regarding this sort of thing and how I should proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Kirk
They should have been able to REFUSE the charges... I guess you will have to wait till they post to the account and dispute them over the phone and follow up by mail (CERTIFIED R/R)...I would have them FREEZE the account even if you can't dispute the charges...SO NO MORE CHARGES WILL EVEN BE "PRE-AUTHORIZED"...THEY WILL JUST BE DENIED!!!
Thank you very much for the reply George. Thats what I asked the CSR today and she assured me that if anyone even tried to get an authorization on the card it would be refused since it is now over the credit limit. I'm just wondering if I should go ahead and report the card Lost/Stolen to cover myself legally... even though the physical card itself wasn't Lost/Stolen. Thanks again! Kirk
"I have the card in my possession...it WAS NOT STOLEN only the account number was used with-out my permission...or somebody messed up typing their account number and transposed some numbers" Say your card number was ....-XXXX-4258 ...and mine was ....-XXXX-4285...I just transposed the last 2 numbers and I charged to your card by MISTAKE!!!
I fail to understand why you didn't report it as stolen already. Even if you had actually possession of the card, someone has stolen your account # to make purchases, perhaps they are using your account # online to make purchases. I think you should call back CO and explain your situation again. They should not tell you not to worry about charges because nothing will go through due to over the limit, they should tell you not to worry because they froze all activity on your account due to theft. Just my .02
Just FYI, it doesn't exactly work that way. Harder to transpose numbers on credit cards than you think it is. There is a rudimentary check sum algorithim used on all credit cards. I know this may be a bit OT but I thought it was neat anyway. Check this out: When dealing with credit cards it is important to realize that some have different lengths and have different prefixs. MasterCard is of length 16 and has a prefix of 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 VISA is of length 13 or 16 and has a prefix of 4 American Express is of length 15 and has a prefix of 34 or 37 Discover is of length 16 and has a prefix of 6011 All of the above credits use (mod 10) to determine a check digit, and in all cases the check digit is the right-most digit in the number. To determine the check digit for a credit card follow the below steps. NOTE: In MasterCard and VISA include the prefix digits in the calculation. In American Express and Discover the prefix digits are omitted from all calculations. Step 1: Starting from the second digit from the right and moving towards the left, multiply every digit by 2. 3*2 = 6 1*2 = 2 8*2 = 16 9*2 = 18 5*2 = 10 2*2 = 4 6*2 = 12 5*2 = 10 Step 2: Sum the digits from Step 1. 6 + 2 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 0 = 33 Step 3: Sum all of the digits not originally mutliplied by 2. 3 + 8 + 3 + 8 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 32 Step 4: Sum together the results from Step 2 and Step 3. 33 + 32 = 55 Step 5: Subtract the sum from the next highest multiple of 10. 60 -55 = 5 [check digit] A person can determine if the check digit of a given credit card is valid by repeating Steps 1, 2, 3, 4 above for all digits, including the check digit. The sum, s, obtained in Step 4 should be s = 0(mod 10). In our case 60 = 0 (mod 10). Its hard to guess credit card numbers but pretty easy to obtain them. All a person would have to do is walk around a parking lot from a store that prints the card number on the reciept. After finding a suitable victim, look the victims address in the phone book. All the info needed to make a few online purchases and have them shipped wherever before the victim ever finds out. So that brings me to my final point, for future reference be careful with your credit card reciepts!
