Bank account was hacked

[katz]

I logged in to my main (bill paying) account yesterday to reconcile the statement and saw an "insufficient funds fee" of $35.00, a $489.00 charge to some online prescription glasses company, and an "international transaction fee" of $20.00. This is the first time I have been hit like this.

Contacted the bank, they killed my card and filed a dispute claim on the charges. In 7-10 days I will be notified if they will refund my money.

My debit card was the one that was used for the transaction. The thing is, I do ALL online purchases using paypal (which is tied to this bank account.) I never type my debit card in a website for any purchases.

The only thing I really use this card for is fuel purchases at the pump at the local filling stations, maybe the infrequent purchase at Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc.

Logging into my account and seeing those charges, I felt so violated, and outraged.

How about you guys; Have you ever experienced this? And, how do you go about preventing it from occurring?

I'm thinking of nixing the debit card altogether and just using a credit card for all purchases from now on. At least that way they won't be able to have access to my actual cash, i.e. drain the bank account dry.

 

[Martyn]

Never had an issues but I use a credit card for everything even through Amazon and EBay. I just pay the lot off each month so no interest fees. You are more protected in the uk paying by credit card.

 

[katz]

The bank rep. told me "I wouldn't worry about it", which leads me to believe that they will stand behind me and issue the credit to my acct. At this point I am concerned about it happening again.

Sad that we live in an age where we can't actually use our bank accounts/debit cards safely, but of course that's been the case for years. However, when it hits you personally you take more of an interest in it.

Time to do as you suggested; use credit cards for all purchases, pay off at end of month.

I even had a couple of fraudulent purchases on my paypal account over the years, and to their credit, paypal backed me 100% and credited my account. They were something like $20 - $30 charges though, nothing big like this one was...

 

[Doc+Com]

Its happened to me a couple of times over the years and on both occasions, the bank (Chase) have issued a new credit card and refunded the charges on my account. Gas stations are a prime source of this scam...especially the ones that are unattended over night and ATM's too. Just another sad reminder of what some people will stoop to to get your hard earned money.

I would suggest you use a credit card instead of debit for the protection benefits.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Not had it happen to me yet but one of my customers got temporarily taken for about $10,000 in total. The bank said they intercepted to transfers and credited it all back to his account, which I think was just BS. They had been traveling in UK and Europe, so could have been skimmed anywhere. The changes he had to make to CC, bank accounts/identities, etc. was extensive and a PITA. It was through European equivalents of Paypal, out of Romania or something.

The one thing that scares me, is that the bank will transfer funds between our accounts to cover an overdraft, so hacking a chequing account could drain all personal checking and savings accounts of me, the wife and the business. That's why I keep minimal funds there, and keep most of them in another bank and just transfer it is as needed.

 

[atlanticjim]

I had this happen to me a few times with a debit card and a credit card. I never had any problem with the bank crediting the account but with the debit card it took about a week and I missed the ca$h.
We have had a big up-tick of debit/credit card crimes here on my island in the past year.
Especially prevalent are skimmers, attachments which go over the card slot on an ATM and collect the card info. This is paired with a tiny spycam which watches you enter your pin. I always cover my hand while I enter any pin's.

With your debit card, always choose credit rather than debit when given a chance. There will be no PIN entry, the protections against fraud are better and in some cases the institution (including my credit union) will rebate you at the end of the year for using credit instead of debit.

Throughout the rest of the world the credit cards have imbedded chips which make it nearly impossible to clone. Here in the US there is a push to make them manditory by October 2015 but the size of the market makes it difficult. WSJ article

Personally, I think that $9.99 per month for LifeLock is a good deal and I recommend it.

Of course all this advice is available online from consumer agencies.

The one thing that scares me, is that the bank will transfer funds between our accounts to cover an overdraft, so hacking a chequing account could drain all personal checking and savings accounts of me, the wife and the business. That's why I keep minimal funds there, and keep most of them in another bank and just transfer it is as needed.

I called my credit union and set up my accounts to prevent this. Instead I have a text alert when the accounts fall to a certain $ amount and I can check the transactions to see if there was any fraudulent charge.

 

[frederick]

+1 for LifeLock. Best public secret ever.

Work with your bank, and monitor any other bank accounts as well. Thats my only advice.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Sounds like you got hit by a skimming machine. Or was a victim of credit card account info being hacked ie Target. Many of those hacks still have plenty of unused card numbers being sold, traded, and finally broken into.

I bank with Chase bank and while there are many things to hate about big banks I will say that they respond rapidly to fraud and refund money immediately. Now in theory they can decide a charge is legitimate and take the money back but I've never had a chargeback questioned. IT happens. Unless you use only cash there is no way to prevent it as most likely the weak link is the vendors you deal with. Though gas pumps and atms are getting hit with skimmer machines more frequently. US needs to get smart cards to prevent that.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Happened to us once. My wife was checking our accounts one night around midnight, and noticed charges from california(we've never been there). She was not sure what they were, I saw CA and mentioned it looked like california. Either way, she called and reported we had a card stolen(we didn't, someone must have skimmed it), the person started out purchasing gas and food, then starting shopping at target. We caught it before they could get too far, and the bank returned our money. As far as we can deduce, we had gone through the drive through of a fast food place, and someone there must have skimmed it from what we were told and found out.

 

[MobileTechie]

Sounds more like your card was copied rather than your account being hacked. It's happened to me before after using an unfamiliar web store in the UK. I told the bank who I thought it was and they did not appear remotely interested. They very asked me which purchases I didn't recognise and my list matched their list and money was back in my account within a few days.

 

[Krynn72]

Had my best buy MasterCard hit once. They put a hold on the card because they figured it was fraudulent. Judging by the charge, I guessed that it was for a porn site lol. When I called them, they just removed the charge and sent me a new card with new number. The card only had a $300 limit anyways.

I have jumped in heavily into mobile banking now, and now anytime a charge or debit is made I get a notification on my phone within minutes. Should help me keep an eye on everything. I have been a nearly exclusive credit/debit card user for about 10 years though, and only had that one minor incident so far.

 

[acscva]

Yeah I hardly ever use my debit cards anymore except at my actual bank if I need to pull cash out. It seems that debit cards are the most comprised and not as easy to get your money back compared to an actual capital one or american express.

I have heard a lot about skimming devices on all types of machines in both retail stores and atm machines throughout the world. Crazy!

 

[skdmaster]

I just truly wonder how many businesses will adopt a smartcard terminal come next October. I know my processor made us upgrade our terminal a couple months back for being able to take a smartcard and I just got a new Amex card replacement that I wasn't due for another 4 months to get just because they started rolling out smartcards. I wonder if you will see all of the gas stations replace the readers with smartcard only because they can still keep using swipe just the responsibility of the fraud falls on the business owner but if they skimmed the card then there is no ties to that business and is fully usable for online purchases.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The only thing I really use this card for is fuel purchases at the pump at the local filling stations, maybe the infrequent purchase at Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc.

I read your post very quickly, but I'm guessing your bank account wasn't actually "hacked"...but your credit/debit card info was simply obtained.
Guessing there was a "skimmer" on the gas pump at one of the stations you used. Eyeball ANYthing closely that you insert your CC's into.

 

[trevm999]

There have been some modified chip card readers found around here. The card gets inserted farther in than usual.

 

[Simplify]

It has happened to me a couple times as well. One time was a conference in Baltimore and the other a vacation in Vegas. The one in Vegas actually took me a couple weeks to notice since I routinely used the card for all purchases ranging from a couple dollars and up. The charges started out in the 2 to 3 dollar range then all of a sudden it jumped up to a couple hundred. Being on vacation and stopping in at various vendors for a beverage or snack here and there I didn't even notice it until I got home. Thankfully the Credit Union I was with was wonderful and took care of it immediately once spotted. The one that occurred in Baltimore was several hundred and noticed immediately.

The one thing they all had in common and made it immediately clear once spotted was they all had international fees associated with them but for whatever reason those didn't show up until a couple days after each charge.

Both of those experiences happening within a few months of each other led to me being much more careful about where and how I use a debit card as well as signing up for a monitoring service. It's been 5 years now and no problems and over that time the monitoring service has caught 3 different attempts.

 

[katz]

I read your post very quickly, but I'm guessing your bank account wasn't actually "hacked"...but your credit/debit card info was simply obtained.
Guessing there was a "skimmer" on the gas pump at one of the stations you used. Eyeball ANYthing closely that you insert your CC's into.

Here in Penna. all the fuel pumps that I ever use (I pay at the pump) have the card reader built into the actual pump body, so an attached skimmer would be very noticeable. Same with the ATM machines. In most of the stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) the reader is very obviously the "store" reader and not some add-on.

I do a lot of online purchases and I'm guessing the card number may have been lifted from one of those merchants. I'm wracking my brain trying to remember when I used the card for an online purchase, but I cannot remember, as I mainly use Paypal for all of the online stuff.

After we paid off all cc bills a year/more ago, we closed all those accounts and said 'never again", but I do realize it is a necessary evil to have a credit card...

So now I'm off to do some online searching for a good 0% card with no yearly fees/early payback fees, etc...any suggestions?

 

[Krynn72]

Here in Penna. all the fuel pumps that I ever use (I pay at the pump) have the card reader built into the actual pump body, so an attached skimmer would be very noticeable.

The gas station skimmers are not installed separate, but installed inside the pumps own reader. The thieves literally open up the card reader and put the device inside along with the original hardware. It's literally impossible to see it, and the only indication would be a voided warranty sticker, if there was even one there to begin with.

 

[Moltuae]

The only thing I really use this card for is fuel purchases at the pump at the local filling stations, maybe the infrequent purchase at Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc.

Several years ago -- before we switched to chip & pin in the UK -- same thing happened to me.

I noticed a bunch of transactions for hundreds of pounds in my back account, mostly for domestic appliances (washing machines, fridges, etc) that I hadn't purchased.

Turns out it was the filling station that I used. It was raided a few days later by police. They'd been skimming/cloning customer's cards.

It's never happened since and never with any of the thousands of online purchases I've made over the years.

I always use a credit card now too (rather than a debit card) and just repay the card immediately so that I don't pay any interest. This was my bank's recommendation, since credit cards are better covered against fraudulent use (or so they tell me).

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Here in Penna. all the fuel pumps that I ever use (I pay at the pump) have the card reader built into the actual pump body, so an attached skimmer would be very noticeable. Same with the ATM machines. In most of the stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc) the reader is very obviously the "store" reader and not some add-on.

Most of the newer type ones...you cannot tell the difference. They're no longer the big clunky obvious "plop on top" ones you're thinking of.