Walmart, credit card problems BE AWARE

[newbury]

Background - About a year or so ago I found a bogus charge on my CC for a purchase at Walmart. I called Walmart, complained, they fixed it.
Today I was going over recent charges and found a $5.00 charge to Walmart for Jan 1st.
The amount was a first flag - $5 EXACTLY
The date a second flag - I hadn't been to Walmart on that day.
I was concerned. I've read sometimes scammers "test" using a card with small charges. Again I called, they said they would cancel the charge.
Have others been seeing this?

 

[IXLR8]

I had similar thing happen to me after visiting a NAPA auto parts store. I would be calling my credit card company and getting a new card number.

 

[Snobdds]

You should throw out that CC and get the bank to get you a new one.

 

[newbury]

Yeah, that's in progress.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

EVERY TIME we buy ANYTHING online at Walmart, our card # is stolen. We stopped ordering online with them.

 

[Dftodd]

I had similar thing happen to me after visiting a NAPA auto parts store. I would be calling my credit card company and getting a new card number.

My company CC got popped in Salt Lake city. Or the Denver Airport. Not sure which since I had lunch while on a 3 hr layover.

Expenses are tracked religiously with the company through an app and computer website for submitting expense reports. My usual unless traveling is a needed part out on the road, or dealing with a supplier we don't have an account with.

Got a call from the CC company. Guy introduced himself. Then he got to the reason for the call. He asked "I'm assuming your not making a charitable donation to (Baptist church) for $1800???"

We then had to go through my copious amounts of transactions for the two week trip. Three charges ended up being removed.

Haven't had issues at Walmart. Then again we don't order anything online from them either. But we have been victims of skimmers on a gas pump before.

 

[Torvy]

We split our card charges onto two separate cards for this reason. Not necessarily specific to Walmart, but card numbers get stolen and compromised. It was a PITA to fix all of our recurring charges. Now we use one card for paying our monthly recurring fees and another card to buy gas, groceries or online stuff.

The one time I am 100% where my card numbers was stolen was at a business lunch less than a block from work. Oh, and my employer was also the issuing bank. I paid for lunch on the card and less than an hour later there is like $12 of pizza charged. When I bought pizza for lunch on my work card it was typically $300-$500 minimum. Shortly after the pizza 'test' they ordered $1300+ from Best Buy on the East coast (this was in Plano, TX).

The worst part for me was having to complete an expense report for fraud.

On a per transaction basis, your data is much more likely to be stolen in person than online. There are so many more online transactions, that it just seems to happen more there.

 

[etpm]

My company CC got popped in Salt Lake city. Or the Denver Airport. Not sure which since I had lunch while on a 3 hr layover.

Expenses are tracked religiously with the company through an app and computer website for submitting expense reports. My usual unless traveling is a needed part out on the road, or dealing with a supplier we don't have an account with.

Got a call from the CC company. Guy introduced himself. Then he got to the reason for the call. He asked "I'm assuming your not making a charitable donation to (Baptist church) for $1800???"

We then had to go through my copious amounts of transactions for the two week trip. Three charges ended up being removed.

Haven't had issues at Walmart. Then again we don't order anything online from them either. But we have been victims of skimmers on a gas pump before.

I got skimmed twice. Both times from the same gas station. I found out about where I got skimmed the first time after the second time I got skimmed. The CC card company told me that they were pretty sure about the skimming and where it happened after the second incident. Then, after a little detective work, it didn't take much really, I found out that the same gas station had been hit by skimmers during the same time frame as the first time my card was skimmed. Apparently the first time the thieves stole the card info they used a fairly large device they put into a trash can that was close to a pump. And the second time they used a card reader that fit over and looked exactly like the pump card reader. Pretty sophisticated. I have had my identity stolen 3 times. The first time took over 6 years to finally get it resolved. I know old folks are often victims of identity theft and it can really mess up their lives. Often identity theft is blamed on strung out drug users but the majority of the serious identity theft is being done by well organized people. And these people cause terrible harm to those who can least afford it. I think identity theft should be treated like theft with a weapon. A lot of the time it isn't skimming cards or mail theft but organized people in another country doing the stealing using computers and phone banks. I don't know what the solution is but if a group of people came here on a plane, held up a bunch of elderly people, and then got on another plane and flew back home, our government would be up in arms and would be doing all sorts of things, like calling ambassadors to ask what is going on and why aren't the criminals in jail yet and getting local police involved to capture the criminals. But with identity theft it seems like more is being done by private folks on YouTube. Wow, I guess I went on a rant. Identity theft must have touched a nerve.
Eric

 

[Torvy]

In my time doing fraud investigation work, I would say the majority of identity theft is done by family members. Parents use their kids SSN and name to rack up debt. Young people use their parents and grandparents info to do the same. The kids don't know this has happened for 10-20 years after and little can be done. Parents and grandparents rarely press charges due to embarrassment and/or protecting their wayward progeny. I saw this a lot when parents didn't speak English and the 'kids' were doing the translation. Had a number of older Navajo families who had been scammed by family. Banks tend to have translators for Spanish, and a few other common languages...not so much for Native languages.

Sophisticated fraud rings do a lot of damage, too. They get most of the investigative and media attention because each perp is responsible for a great deal more fraud. The internet has made more of the fraud international in nature. That makes prosecution much more difficult.

 

[duffer]

One little thing you can do that helps a LOT, is to set up alerts on your CC to notify you under various circumstances.
Charges over a $$ limit, CC not available for purchase, gas station purchases, etc.
We get an alert for almost anything, and it helps us cut off any problems before they become big problems. Wife's CC got hacked twice. Was able to fix it and get new CC right away.