- #1
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- 87
The last week or so has been really strange. Last week, I started getting packages from Office Depot/Tech Depot for some stranger. The address is mine, but the name on the packages is someone I've never heard of.
I can't believe how hard it is to take care of a problem like this. Their automated voice line has no categories for this sort of thing and it seems to be impossible to get a human even by hitting 0 repeatedly, which was supposedly the trick to get a human, but perhaps I missed my opportunity. It definitely doesn't work once you've gotten into one of the menus.
Plan B was e-mail. I'm beginning to think I'm dealing with a Nigerian e-mail scam. Whoever receives the e-mails merely asks for info such as my account number (I don't have one! I never ordered anything from you!), the address the order was shipped to (did you think to scroll down the page a little bit?! This e-mail contains my entire correspondence with you and your question was asked and answered previously!), etc.
At least Tech Depot disposed of the issue with as little effort as possible. They told me to donate or discard the package and informed me that they were crediting my account for $16.97. Well, I guess that would make me happy if I'd actually paid for the item.
Come to think of it, I've had another problem that I noticed just this weekend. Someone ran up almost $1200 on my credit card over a 10 day period. Fortunately, that's been taken care of and I won't be liable for any of those charges, but...
What a coincidence! One of the charges is for $16.97 and is within a day of the shipping date for the package I didn't order! And there's an Office Depot charge within a day of the shipping date for those two packages. They must have had the billing address in addition to the card number and whoever has my credit card number must have had the package shipped to the billing address instead of their desired address.
Three of the charges are for TOYSRUS. That almost makes me feel bad that some kid's parent is running up charges on a stolen credit card to buy her a present for her birthday. But at least she had a nice pizza party on her birthday, though. Somehow, that just seems really dumb to have a pizza delivered to your house using a stolen credit card number, but I guess it isn't any more incriminating than deliveries of any of the other stuff they ordered.
Of course, I don't even really know if the same person ordered all that stuff. It turns out that the better money is in selling the credit card numbers, not using them. You can find websites where you can buy stolen credit card numbers for as cheap as $1.50 a piece. Of course, stolen cedit cards have a short shelf life, so you probably need more than one to actually have a good chance of purchasing anything, plus you pay extra if you want a credit card number from a particular locality, want other info associated with the number, etc. And, presumably, a credit card number gets sold to more than one person, making it more difficult to track down who stole the number in the first place.
Vendors want it to be as easy as possible to make purchases, so credit card companies already pass up several possible security measures that could reduce the risk. For example, in some states and/or credit card companies, the store isn't even allowed to ask for identification - even if the customer wrote "See ID" on the back of the card (in fact, if you write "See ID" on the back instead of your signature, then the card technically isn't valid, so writing "See ID" on the back of your card is more useful as a survey of how many stores actually follow the few rules in place than as an actual security measure.) Given that they're already accepting some loss (which they just pass on to customers in higher prices), I wonder if credit card companies even bother to go after all of the little purchases made on a stolen credit card.
That probably won't help whoever placed the order with the furniture store. That person will probably be nailed with a felony.
I can't believe how hard it is to take care of a problem like this. Their automated voice line has no categories for this sort of thing and it seems to be impossible to get a human even by hitting 0 repeatedly, which was supposedly the trick to get a human, but perhaps I missed my opportunity. It definitely doesn't work once you've gotten into one of the menus.
Plan B was e-mail. I'm beginning to think I'm dealing with a Nigerian e-mail scam. Whoever receives the e-mails merely asks for info such as my account number (I don't have one! I never ordered anything from you!), the address the order was shipped to (did you think to scroll down the page a little bit?! This e-mail contains my entire correspondence with you and your question was asked and answered previously!), etc.
At least Tech Depot disposed of the issue with as little effort as possible. They told me to donate or discard the package and informed me that they were crediting my account for $16.97. Well, I guess that would make me happy if I'd actually paid for the item.
Come to think of it, I've had another problem that I noticed just this weekend. Someone ran up almost $1200 on my credit card over a 10 day period. Fortunately, that's been taken care of and I won't be liable for any of those charges, but...
What a coincidence! One of the charges is for $16.97 and is within a day of the shipping date for the package I didn't order! And there's an Office Depot charge within a day of the shipping date for those two packages. They must have had the billing address in addition to the card number and whoever has my credit card number must have had the package shipped to the billing address instead of their desired address.
Three of the charges are for TOYSRUS. That almost makes me feel bad that some kid's parent is running up charges on a stolen credit card to buy her a present for her birthday. But at least she had a nice pizza party on her birthday, though. Somehow, that just seems really dumb to have a pizza delivered to your house using a stolen credit card number, but I guess it isn't any more incriminating than deliveries of any of the other stuff they ordered.
Of course, I don't even really know if the same person ordered all that stuff. It turns out that the better money is in selling the credit card numbers, not using them. You can find websites where you can buy stolen credit card numbers for as cheap as $1.50 a piece. Of course, stolen cedit cards have a short shelf life, so you probably need more than one to actually have a good chance of purchasing anything, plus you pay extra if you want a credit card number from a particular locality, want other info associated with the number, etc. And, presumably, a credit card number gets sold to more than one person, making it more difficult to track down who stole the number in the first place.
Vendors want it to be as easy as possible to make purchases, so credit card companies already pass up several possible security measures that could reduce the risk. For example, in some states and/or credit card companies, the store isn't even allowed to ask for identification - even if the customer wrote "See ID" on the back of the card (in fact, if you write "See ID" on the back instead of your signature, then the card technically isn't valid, so writing "See ID" on the back of your card is more useful as a survey of how many stores actually follow the few rules in place than as an actual security measure.) Given that they're already accepting some loss (which they just pass on to customers in higher prices), I wonder if credit card companies even bother to go after all of the little purchases made on a stolen credit card.
That probably won't help whoever placed the order with the furniture store. That person will probably be nailed with a felony.