My husband travels pretty frequently for business and he books almost all of his travel online. On Monday, he was online checking airfares for an upcoming business trip and when I attempted to book a ticket using the credit card he uses strictly for his business travel, it wouldn’t go through. He first called the online travel service he was dealing with and their customer service representative informed him that his credit card was the issue, it was apparently locked.
Next, he and the travel service got on a 3-way conference call with the credit card company. After identifying himself, he was asked if he had recently traveled to Eastern Europe. No, he had not. He was then asked if he had recently made any lengthy internet phone calls originating in Eastern Europe. No, he had not. The credit card company didn’t think he had and so they had locked the account. Hmmm, would have been nice if they had notified him! Oh wait, he did receive notification in the mail, yesterday!
The credit card company approved his ticket purchase on Monday and then closed that account. They then reissued him a new card with a new account number. This was several thousand dollars in charges, thankfully they are not holding him responsible, but it shows the importance of fraud protection.
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One of the things that the internet has done for me is that it has made shopping for hard to find items so much easier. Just a few weeks ago I had to buy a new automatic pool sweep for our swimming pool. No pool stores around us carried what we needed and wanted to charge an arm and a leg for a substitute replacement. I was able to find the exact model of what we needed by using the internet to find a pool supply store in California. It can be a bit scary though to give out credit card information for payment to companies that you don’t really know or aren’t familiar with. I try to check them out thoroughly before making any purchase.
As a precaution, I am also pretty good about checking credit card statements every month to verify purchases. That would be why when I got the $15 charge from Russia on one of my credit cards I was able to immediately contact the credit card company and close down the account. I was also not held responsible for that charge. While it was only $15, the cc company informed me that credit card or identity theft usually begins with small amounts and works its way up. From that day forward I’ve had fraud protection on my credit cards.
I’ve recently learned of a new service, Shop Shield®, that provides identity theft protection when you shop online. Considering how much shopping I do online, I think this is definitely worth taking a look at. This is a free service too and it provides protection for:
* Credit Card Numbers
* Bank Accounts
* Billing Address
* Email Address
* Login Information
Their service, besides being free, is 100% guaranteed. All of a consumer’s personal data is encrypted and stored in independent data bases. On top of all of that, they even provide free victim resolution services and will reimburse up to $10,000 above what your credit card company or bank will provide. I think the sense of security you can get from knowing there is someone watching out for you and there to help when you need it is worth the effort of signing up.
