Fraud nowadays

My primary defense against credit card fraud is that I have not very many accounts, and look at the most recent transactions daily. With luck I'll notice something out of line early enough to avoid a big pile up of trouble.

If daily seems too much to stomach, I think even weekly would be a significant defense.

I only have two credit cards, from the largest companies and they are very good about catching fraudlent charges (which have been quite rare). But one of them flagged some bogus charges last winter and after contacting them, they cancelled the card and sent me a new one with a different account number.

This could have only happened because some place where I used that card got hacked, I suspect it could have been AT&T because they had a big data breach shortly before then, but that's just a guess. Anyway, I started getting lots of spam e-mails and phone calls around the same time, so that just reinforces my theory that a company where I used the credit card online got hacked, revealing my credit card, e-mail and phone number.

Ugh. Get ready for a lot more of that in the years to come. IMO, the only defense is to use the major card companies that are vigilant about this stuff and are good about spotting transactions that don't fit your usual pattern.

To make it worse, I get a real flood of totally bogus phishing e-mails claiming my card was used for some fraudulent purchase, but they are just spam (and pretty obvious). I'm sure their idea is to send you to a bogus website for the credit card company where they can steal your account and password. Not seeing so many of those now, but that might be because my spam filter is catching them. Anyway, don't get sucked in by that scam.

Yep, just looked in my spam folder, here's a snip from one of these scams last week that was automatically deleted by the spam filter:

______________

Apple Wallet invited you to Review the payment for $349.49 via MetaPay if this is an error reach us at 1 806 xxx xxxx.

Review the payment for $349.49 via MetaPay if this is an error reach us at 1 806 xxx xxxx. Wednesday 8 July 2026 at 20:00 IST We successfully completed the Payment of $231.66 Via Apple-Pay. If not done by you, call Meta assistance at 1 806 xxx xxxx.

[edit] LOL, here's an even better one from my spam folder.
______________

As you instructed 40.9326BTC was deposited into your wallet. Your information remains the same.

Page: xxxxx.Net
Customer ID: xxxxxxx
Access Code: xxxxxxxx

Have a nice day.

Regards,
Torres. M

Where you are getting charged $948.22 for a camera that you ordered but they need to make sure the info is correct or, if you didn’t order the camera, please call them so that they can stop or reverse the charges on your credit card. Delete is the next action that I take.

Nearly all credit cards and banks offer an option to get an alert for any transaction over $x.

Configure those to send alerts for anything over $0.01. You'll know right away when someone's trying to charge the card. If the bank doesn't offer this service, choose a bank that does.

I prefer the email kind but texts alerts are also available.

My credit union has an app called "card guard" that really saved me a few years ago. It sends you a real-time notification when anything is charged to your enrolled cards. Even though I had never let their Visa card out of my possession, somehow some crook had gotten hold of the card info and started going to town making multiple charges of hundreds of dollars each. Fortunately, I was sitting idle at home when the app notified me of a big charge in a distant city. As I was opening the app to see the details, another big charge from a different merchant popped up. I immediately disabled that card in the app - just takes one click - and seconds after that another charge popped up, which was refused since the card was disabled in real time. I had to go through the usual fraud reporting routine for the initial charges, but if I hadn't been notified and immediately shut the card off it could have been a lot worse. I never did determine how my card info leaked out, but it was probably one of those massive data breaches that I have zero control over.

For all online purchases.

It allows me to create a virtual credit card # and use that.

So I go to order something, create a virtual card with the amount of the purchase as the limit.

Then I complete my purchase transaction using the virtual card.

I see immediately if the card is processed and. Then I deactivate the virtual card.

Once in a while, I set up the card and its declined for insufficient funds, so I just deactivate that card and dont use that merchant

Call me overly cautious

Additionally, beyond the "charge over $x amount" alert, options can include alerts for credit card used for foreign transactions, credit card purchases with card not present (like for all online orders, etc.), and more. Besides credit card alerts, bank checking and savings accounts have alerts that can be chosen.

One thing I do to minimize card fraud is to never let the card out of my sight.

I was scammed on two occasions and both occurred after I gave the card to a server in a restaurant. I now pay cash or frequent establishments that offer personal scanning devices.

I also don't use my smartphone for making purchases. I don't store any financial data on my phone.

I'd love to use the notification option for CC charges but my auto-pay charges come during the night.

I still check every entry in my monthly statements and haven't caught an "error" in years. I have had a few valid fraud calls from the CC vendor and have found it valuable to always have a second card with me.

Fidelity just "improved" our account and changed my wife's CC number. That makes reconciliation clumsier but I guess, in the event of a fraudulent charge, one of our cards would still be OK

Text notifications have saved my butt several times. ATM card was skimmed at a 7-11. Was on the phone to CC company within minutes. For the next few days I was deluged with "transaction Denied" test messages. Credit union covered the $200 fraudulent charge.
Additionally, many credit card applications allow you to lock the card between uses.

Dead giveaway when the e-mail is from a gmail account or a foreign country.
I've been getting a lot of e-mails from what appears to be a valid Amazon address claiming my Amazon account is locked due to "suspicious activity". Analysis of the sender's IP address in the header indicated that the e-mail sender was in Russia. These e-mails looked very authentic.
Mark

I get multiple calls a day for multiple months from these guys. All from spoofed telephone numbers.

BOT: "Hi I'm Charley from the State Resource Center. We checked your file and your missing benefits. What is your age?
ME: "For which state?"
BOT: "We are from the Local State Resource Center. What is your age?"
...

I keep asking questions until they eventually hang up.
Mark

Why would you even answer a call like that? When you do, you can be sure that more will follow. As much as anything else, they just want to confirm that your number is valid and that somebody actually answers when a scammer calls. And the fact that you "kept asking questions" make it even sweeter, it tells them you're willing to engage. Who knows, the next fraudster that calls might be convincing enough to actually fool you.

Yeah, I understand that some people here have landlines and share them with other members of the household. I moved beyond that many years ago and only use a cell phone. They are getting pretty good at flagging these spammers and alerting you before you even answer. And, even if they don't, I simply don't answer calls from numbers I don't know. Got something important to tell me? Tell my voicemail (and I will just delete that too, LOL);

And when I'm on call, so I have to answer. I was fooled. Kept asking me about my medicare so I shouted "I AM NOT OLD ENOUGH TO GET MEDICARE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

The bot replied, sorry, I must be having problem with my headset.

It's not there yet but I'd say in a few years it will be a total human and likely outsmart a lot of people

I always let my answering machine answer calls I don't recognize. It doesn't seem to have any effect on the number of calls I get. Can these "bots" tell the difference between a human answering the call or a recorded message from an answering machine? Both answer the phone.

I have no idea how spammers actually run their business, but would guess that any number that answers will go on their list, regardless of who or what answers the phone. You said "I get multiple calls a day..." That would suggest you are already on their list.

For me, I can't see any advantage to having a landline in today's world. It used to be that it was sort of "disaster insurance" because the phones would still work when the power is out. Is that even true today?

I seriously doubt it, the phone system is all digital now, if you still have an old analog line, that only goes as far as some digital interface box down the road from you. When Verizon rolled out FIOS in my little town (population ~1,600) it was part of a bigger plan to go digital with all the phones. They included landline phone service in the package - it was actually cheaper to get the plan that included a landline than the internet-only plan! In converting, what they did was just tie your existing analog phones into the fiber interface box outside the house. So, inside you continue to use your old analog phones, but it is converted to digital right on the other side of the wall. So, if the power or internet goes out, so do your old analog phones.

I suspect that is more or less the same in most places, the only difference might be *where* the analog signal is converted to digital - it might be down the road on a phone pole instead of right at your house. But either way, it is likely to go down during a major power outage. And even if it doesn't the fiber for the digital network is strung on utility poles just like the powerlines, so it's vulnerable to falling trees, etc. Seems to me, a cell phone will be more robust, with a number of different tower locations instead of one wire that goes into your house.

I take the same approach you do. Plus, I get email and text notifications of any credit card charges in real time. Most if not all credit cards, I believe, offer such notification services.

Keep in mind the fiber optic cables that serve cell towers also run on utility poles and are exposed to the same hazards.

Cell towers have backup generators but so do remote analog digital converters. During the last 7 day power outage we had, our analog phone worked the entire time but not the cell phones. Granted, you could likely travel to an area with a working cell tower to get service, but that won't help if you're stuck at home.

Many analog phones located within 2 miles of a central office still use copper conductors and aren't digital. The copper cables are mostly underground at that close range and are less susceptible to surface damage.

Central offices have large battery banks as well as backup generators. These customers would continue to have service for a month or more during a disaster.

Another thing to consider, however remote, is cellular service can be jammed by an enemy or terrorist. Analog phones are bullet proof in that respect.

That being said, I agree than analog phones, for the most part, have outlived their usefulness. The only reason I keep mine is, I'm a Verizon retiree and get free service.

an old phone guy. As I've said before my world was Lucent (AT&T before my time) then Avaya working on large pbxs.

I remember the first time tapping into a conversation--two women said you hear that? Yeah! Hang up now!

Then, I got better and was able to do it less abruptly. With the old Harris butt set and the bed of nails (just googled and they sell for $25 to $50--are you kidding me, they were over $350 new when I got them).

Sounds ridiculous but other than the FBI, things were pretty secure. In order to steal conversations, there needed to be physical access. Today, not at all, one can be anywhere in the world.

I'm thinking that a modern thief, first thing is to cut the internet. That's not hard with FiOS or Comcast etc. I suppose rich people and businesses have 5G backup.

I recommend privacy.com for the creation of virtual credit cards for online purchases. You can create a new virtual credit card for each merchant, or each transaction, or a group of merchants. Whatever you want. You retain full control of all your card numbers there.

I especially like it for any mandatory subscription charges that would autorenew. I've created dozens of virtual credit cards now and haven't had a lick of trouble with any of them. It is a little more work, but just a few minutes worth to create a new card.

I started doing it because I kept having my non-virtual bank credit cards canceled due to an account being hacked. Almost always, the bank was the one that normally spotted it and very quickly. "We just noticed your card being used to charge $700 at a sports bar in Miami [where I haven't been]. We've canceled your card and are sending a replacement." Now that's a lot more work, to reenter the bank card at a bunch of merchants. The virtual credit card approach has been better for me.

Years ago had a service offered on an older credit card that would let me make new numbers, which I used to get to a separate number per online site, as described above by "Lost Anyway". That was a bit of effort, and my current cards don't offer that service directly.

Maybe I'll look into privacy.com. Thanks for the tip.

I just delete them. If there is a problem with a company, they usually send a letter.

My wife had to cancel her debit card due to unauthorized charges. She never even used the card. The bank notified us. We do not know how the fraudsters got he card #.

Wow

And when you look at the sender's address, it's a gmail account. Always think twice and be smart, no matter how convincing.
Mark

that they've reversed the charges.

They didn't reverse the points earned on the fraudulent charges, nor have they sent me a new credit card.

Very weird when we have accounts from questionable entities (Comenity).

I did it to get $200, and, I recall at the time after I did it, they told me I was not eligible for the $200. When I asked why not, the rep and the supervisor could not tell me, they were making things up as they went along.

I was super angry and told myself they have no right to get me this angry so let it go. Then, contrary to what they said, I got $200.

I said never again and I don't believe I've gotten any new credit cards since (Dec. 2024).