I’m a statistic!
Yesterday I got an automated call from Chase. I followed the prompts to get a human. It seems that someone tried two purchases with my Chase issued Visa card at E-Harmony.com; one on 12/24 for $113.17 and again on 12/29 for $177.45. The first went through but the second one tripped a trigger. The account has been cancelled and a new one will be mailed. No money lost. Kudos to Chase!
Here’s the interesting part. I’ve had the card for several years but just signed up for on-line payment on 12/18. I used a secure VPN connection over my secure wireless home network. I do networks for a living so I know it was secure. It could be that the timing is a coincidence - then again, maybe not. Inside job at Chase?
I’d like to think it was a coincidence but I’m sure I’ll never know. I’ve always said that on-line banking was secure as long as you used some common sense. Now I’m not so sure and I’ll go back to mailing a check every month. The price of a stamp is cheap insurance.
I know the topic here is mostly credit card fraud and online safety, but I just want to throw this out there. Good ol’ paper checks are no more secure than advertising your bank routing and account number on a billboard somewhere.
Our business almost got banged with fraud because someone (obviously we don’t know who) got his hands on a check - hey, it may even be one we mailed to him - created a fake check, and tried to cash it at the bank. Even had a fairly good representation of one of our signors. Only thing he did wrong was use a check number than had already been negotiated. So the bank caught it - but not him. Had he just added about 100 to the check number, it probably would have gone through.
Nothing is really safe anymore. So a stamp may not be the best insurance you can buy. Although it probably is the best you’ll buy for $0.41.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am