Bad Credit

In the past month I have taken two airline trips from Mexico to California, been to the Krogers in Georgia, filled up my car with gas in Atlanta, and purchased tickets at a racetrack. Does this sound like me? It was my credit card number walking around in the hands of a criminal who has somehow used two of my credit cards in the past month.

The first time was about a month ago, and I got a letter from a credit card of ours stating that there had been some unusual activity on our account, so they had frozen it until I called them. When I reached the fraud counselor, I found out that multiple airline tickets from Mexico to California had been purchased over a two day period using my credit card number. I still had both our cards in my possession, so we had no idea how the numbers were being used illegally. Luckily, the account was promptly closed, and we were not held liable.

Today, as I was leaving for church, I got another call from a different credit card stating that there had been unusual charges yesterday! Supposedly, someone had filled up for gas five times in one day in Georgia and gone to the racetrack with my credit card. Once again, both cards were still in our possession! The unusual thing this time was that the transactions were all made by swiping the card, so the criminal had to have a physical card! The bank said that these people know how to make duplicate, counterfeit cards, too!

Now, we are going to check our credit reports and be sure there are no problems there. I'm expecting yet another call in a few weeks stating that yet a third card has been compromised (that would probably exhaust our active cards). I wish I knew how these people got my credit card numbers because that is the scary part. How do you protect yourself if you don't know how they are obtaining information?

Lessons we've learned: be vigilent about your credit, read your bills closely to see if there is unusual activity, shred all financial documents, be sure to check your credit reports often, and place a fraud alert on your credit reports as soon as you have any trouble with identity theft. Thank goodness that both of our banks called immediately when they noticed a problem! I sure don't want to pay for a vacation that I never even took!