Credit card fraud

So I’m trying to listen to PressPlay, and I notice that all my streams are only coming in at 20 kbps, which is just killing me – I feel like I’m listening to music on an old AM radio. I call them, and after a few minutes with the support guy, he figures out my account is on probation because the monthly fee on my credit card was declined. Ok, no problem, give him another card (need my music, WAY too quiet in here!), then call the credit card company and see what’s happening.

So I call in, enter my card number via touch tones, and get this security recording asking me to verify some charges. Wow, this is pretty cool – an automated security audit. Some of the charges didn’t sound familiar, so I pressed the appropriate button and talked to a real person.

Turns out there was a $1900 charge made a few days ago, which was declined because they had the wrong expiration date (I just got a new card recently with a new date). This charge, combined with the expired date, was evidently suspicious enough for them to place a security hold on my account – very nice. There was one more charge that wasn’t mine, for about $200 to a well-known auto insurance company.

So what I’m wondering is, how stupid does someone have to be to use a stolen credit card number to pay their insurance bill? I mean, hello?!? They’re going to be pretty easy for them to track down, I would think!

7 thoughts on “Credit card fraud

  1. Ed Strong

    Interesting…have had some strange license-checking activity on PressPlay…and, following your post, remembered that I was charging PressPlay to a recently-expired-but-renewed-with-a-new-number card. I’ve updated my data on the website and am interested to see if I no longer get the license checks. Is PressPlay at the forefront of credit card security?

    Reply
  2. Greg Reinacker

    I don’t know if they’re into credit card security at all – they just crippled my account when they couldn’t charge my card.

    The automated system I was talking about above was from the card-issuing bank.

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