Watch Your Credit Cards

Posted on December 10, 2009 
Filed Under Personal

We recently heard from our credit card company. They wondered if we had been traveling much, since our charge card showed daily use of $100 at some gas stations in another state for the past couple of weeks? My wife indicated that while we have a big old Suburban with a 44-gallon tank, we rarely spend that much on fuel, and even then, only every other week or so — we don’t top off the tank every day!

After Dena talked with the the service agent, she explained she had just put our card on hold due to that suspicious activity. It was apparent that someone had stolen our card number – not the actual card, just the number – and that they were working in tandem with someone at those stations to commit fraud. The thieves were smart – they used the account number in such a way that the unusual activity wouldn’t be easily spotted by our card company or by us. Flying under the radar, they got off with over $1,300 in goods and cash. We’ll never track the thieves down.

Fortunately, we won’t have to pay for that unauthorized use of our credit card, but we’ve had to change cards, re-authorize several auto-pay accounts, and have to file paperwork with the company indicating that we didn’t make those charges.

I’m now on “red alert” with all or our accounts. I’ll be watching the statements frequently, and I’m not likely to rest easy ever again.

With the busiest shopping here, I’ll encourage you to keep a close watch on your credit cards. Go online and monitor their use. Believe me, it will be worth the brief investment of time.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Comments are moderated and will not appear on johnfullerblog.com until they've been approved. While we are eager to facilitate conversation by publishing most comments, we may withhold one from time to time if we deem it offensive, vulgar, overly personal, cynical, disrespectful, irrelevant, redundant or unnecessarily contentious.
Comments on John Fuller's blog may not refer specifically to any current electoral candidate, or any measure on a current ballot – at any level of local, state, or federal government. Focus on the Family is a non-profit 501(c)(3) entity, and therefore cannot take a position on specific votes. Nor can we display any such statements on our Web sites. Likewise, we cannot discuss here the personal viewpoints of people like Dr. Dobson or Jim Daly on political candidates or ballot measures. Any posts to this forum which violate these rules will be removed. There is an alternative venue for this type of discussion. Some activities of this nature are undertaken by Focus on the Family Action, a 501(c)(4) organization, and its media outlet, Citizenlink.
Finally, if you would like to contact our ministry directly, please feel free to do so from one of our FAQs.