Fraud?
Today I was informed that my debit card was flagged for potential fraudulent activity.
When I got back from lunch today I had two voice mail messages, both from my girlfriend telling me that I should call her and it was very important. My bank had called to tell me that there was some sort of fraudulent activity involving my card. I called the number she gave me and after all the usual authentication stuff, the woman asked me what the problem was.
I told her that someone contacted me to tell me that there was some potentially fraudulent activity involving my card. She said there was nothing in the system to indicate my account had been flagged, but went through the usual fraudulent activity list of things to do. "Did you make a purchase in the amount of $25.12 on the 8th of July?" "Yes, at Staples." "Did you..." and so on.
When she finally got in touch with the fraud department to find out what the problem was, they told her that my card had been comprimised. Comprimised? I had shopped at Best Buy recently. Did the waiter at the Indian Restaurant skim my credit card between my giving it to him and him punching in the numbers?
After I got off the phone with her, I realized. It must have been Barnes & Noble. They're probably taking every possible precaution in this matter. I said my account could be comprimised, so they treated it as if my account was comprimised.
Understandable, and I appreciate the effort. I'd love to know if everyone who's ever changed their e-mail address with BN.com also had their credit card flagged for possible fraud. If so, please let me know.
As a follow up to yesterday's post, my friend did forward on my website to someone in BN on Wednesday around noon, so it probably was that that brought them to my site. I also confirmed that I definately did not mention my site to them in the letter I sent to customer service.
page first created on Friday, July 12, 2002
© Mark Wieczorek