So a couple of weeks ago my credit card number was stolen, along with a bunch of personal information. It was annoying, but no worse - the bank canceled all the charges, sent me a new card, etc. Today I got the statement that detailed the fraud charges - one of which was a large donation to a charity. WTF? To make it better, they apparently gave the charity my email address, and I've started getting spam from them. I'm now in touch with someone at the charity who is looking up information to see if we can't catch this person. It's funny, they picked an obscure charity that I rather like. I'm sure the charity had to return the money once the bank followed up on it - they can't keep stolen funds, it's SOP for credit card fraud. The thief should have known that. So A) why did they bother? B) who steals a credit card and uses it to donate to charity, anyway? Have you heard of anything like that? What's your credit card theft horror story?
Aparently there's a lot of this going with Paypal, where people will get their Paypal hijacked and get used to donate to various sites online
Well the online warfare is really getting more serious these days...identity, credit card theft is one of the top problems of a lot of people. I do hope they catch the crooks behind these attacks.
My lady/wife Marilyn just got almost $300 deposited in her account from Microsoft because of some meat sack using her number to access XBox Live - Marilyn just turned 64 and wouldn't know a WOW from a GTA ! Microsoft security is pretty good. Took a few months and a canceled card, but the bank worked with M$ and we got her money back. No bank charges either. John
You got me on that one. Maybe they thought that they wont goto hell if they donate to charity. I wonder if you can still claim the donation on your tax?
Debited, surely - if someone had deposited $300 in your account that would be cause for celebration, no?
Yeah, There were a ton of $6.25 and larger Xbox Live debits for about 3 months. We complained to M$ and they did the IP trace thing and found a user in some other state downloading games off M's account. Best we can figure is it was the same account as her eBay store where she buys and sells stuff. All canceled out and all is good with the world - until next time! On-line commerce is really problematical. John PS: Editing original post
A fantastic idea! I'll have to try it. Huh. I've been told that credit card thieves will make a small purchase to see if a card is active before they go on to make big ones. Maybe this is the new version? Or they think the owner won't notice, or the bank won't believe it's fraud? (Not that my bank had any doubts... they've been great, absolute minimum of fuss and I haven't lost a cent.)
The thing is that who really wants to ask for money back from a charity, the "Robin Hood" was probably trying to make you feel silly for getting your credit card details stolen, whilst trying to do something good.
I seriously doubt the theft had anything to do with making me feel silly, or some sort of misguided altruism. Giving stolen funds to a charity just puts the charity at risk, both legally and ethically. It's not worth the $100 or so that they gave them. I'd also feel worse had the thief not immediately followed it with spending $200 on a pair of Nikes and $150 each on two cameras. If you're going to buy a camera on someone else's dime, get a nice one! None of this point and shoot stuff.
If you remember back a few months, Jeremy Clarkson published his bank account number claiming it was not enough info to rob him. Turned out it was easy to use his account number in setting up a direct debit to donate to a charity.
