Reality Check Courtesy of Citibank
May 11th, 2008 Categories: Life in General
Wednesday, as I sat sipping my coffee, fantisizing about watching Matt Lauer and enjoying the brief peaceful moments I have in the day after getting my daughters on the school bus and before I leave for work I got a call on my home phone. I screened it and ignored it as I always do since anyone who really needs to get a hold of me calls my cell phone, but the message on the answering machine perked my interest. “This is the Citibank Fraud department and we need to speak with you immediately involving some suspicious activity on your Mastercard account” My first reaction was ” Why don’t they understand that I live in a tiny town on the Oregon Coast without a Target or Nordstroms, of course I do a lot of online shopping, and sometimes it adds up….”, but I decided to call them back and check it out anyway. Imagine my suprise when the friendly and english speaking customer service specialist on the other end asked me if I had been overseas?,” Um NO” , “So you didn’t purchase a $1200. Air France airline ticket”, “NO, I wish, but NO”, “How about a overseas shoe store purchase” “NO”, and again an overseas cosmetic store…well could have been me but “NO”.
So evidently according to Citibank I have been a victim of a credit card fraud ring operating overseas which (not to give out too many details to elicite more criminal activity) scrambles various card numbers and expiration dates until they hit the jackpot and get a working combo. Thankfully I am happy to say Citibanks top notch “flagging” system is working and I am not responsible for the charges, it put damper on my day- but was a good wake up call and reminder to be careful with my online purchases. I also feel obligated to report that the Citibank person on the other end of the line was quite informative, patient and overall pretty pleasant to deal with, maybe next time Citibank calls me I’ll awnser. Here are a few safety tips for online shopping courtesy of my friends at Citibank, 1) Only use one credit card with a low limit for online purchases and keep close taps on the purchases, balance etc 2) Only order off sites that have the “verified” check-out symbols, there are a few main ones, you should recognize them when you see them 3) Beware of sites that don’t ask you for that pesky little cvn number on the front or back of the card, thats what many sites don’t ask for oversesas which allows crooks to use other peoples numbers without having the card
Jennie
Terri
Jeremy
Miranda
Amy
Vicky
