I just found by checking accountonline.com that there was a fraudulent charge of a hotel room in Florida on my fiance's credit card. He will be calling Citibank later. Wasn't there someone else on the board that found fraudulent charges on their citi card? How was Citi to work with? Did you have to cancel the card and get a new one?
My sister who lives in Texas, just told me that on her last statement from Citibank, she had a charge on her account from Georgia that she did not make. She will be calling too. Is this an epidemic with Citibank?
It can happen easily with any credit card. All you have to do is contact the credit card company immediately and advise them you did not authorize the charge. They will, as a matter of course, cancel the current card number and issue a new one - this is a security measure. As long as it is reported, you are only liable for the first $50.00, and in some cases they will waive this charge. It is relatively easy for someone to get your credit card number if you are not careful. Anything from using your card in a store and having an employee steal the number to entering it on the internet and having someone hack the merchants database. Newsgroups appear and disappear with regularity on Usenet in which stolen card numbers are posted. I read in a newspaper recently of another method of stealing the credit card information which is even more high tech. A credit card thief will make contact with an employee of a business and provide them with a small box, pocket sized, with a swiping device through which your credit card information can be recorded as the card is swiped. The employee when taking your card to ring a purchase will surreptitiously swipe the card, the box records the information which is later downloaded into a computer. The employee is paid for stealing the numbers, sometimes several hundred dollars a day, and the credit card thief will then either use the numbers to make purchases via the internet, or to make an actual card with your information on it. In the case of cards being made, most often they are sold to someone traveling and making purchases in a foreign country as more can be charged before the information hits and it is discovered.
This is 3 people in the past month with this problem with Citibank. My sister had not even used her card recently before the fraudulent charge. Neither my sister nor my fiance should be liable for any portion of the charge.
Not to induce the paranoid, but once I had my debt CC number stolen via the gas pump! I swiped my card, and apparently then number comes across in the gas station attendent's register (this was 6 yrs ago so they may have changed the methods now). Only way I found out was several charges to HSN/QVC! They were having the items delivered to an address that was by the gas station.... Deb
