Off-Topic CC Hack/Compromised ... twice.

[TinaT]

By chance have any of you had issues with your CC being hacked? This happened to me about 4 weeks ago with 1 of 2 cards I have. We got everything taken care of, but now I just got a call about my other card. I am on very few sights with CC. The only items I purchased with the 2nd card was from FitFavs and Total Fitness. The first card was connected to them as well until the hack.

[nschultz]

Mine was compromised at the beginning of the month. It was a random $500 charge intermixed with my other charges, so didn't catch the attention of the cc company. No other erroneous charges.

I use it frequently online, so hard to say. We had recently gotten a letter from a company we had purchased from who had been hacked. I notified the cc company, they weren't very concerned, basically said it happens all the time anymore😬

[Rhonda]

I had mine hacked also but my CC company caught it and send me a text right away. I called them and they had already stopped the charge it was for some clothing store in NJ - never been to NJ myself. So of course they closed the account and sent me a new one right away.

I try to figure out where the information got hacked and it could have been the Post Office, Amazon, or a store I had been to. So all is good and I do check my statement and also go online when I think about it.

Yes unfortunately it is happening a lot more lately. this isn't the first time for me either and I always hope it won't happen again but we can never know.

I don't think the chip helps either since the card had a chip, who knows.

[summer breeze]

This has happened to me 3 or 4 times over the years. I think the credit card company notified me but it was always resolved quickly. I think it really is pretty common and unfortunately "no big deal" with the credit card companies.

[athompson10]

I've had hacks on two different cards over the last six months. My Discover card was the oddest, because I only use it about twice a year to keep the credit line active. It was compromised in January after an online charge at a fitness site, Discover sent me a new card, I used the new card one time (in April, at a bricks-and-mortar store, not online) and within two weeks of that charge I got a "notice of suspicious activity" call from Discover. I suspect the flaw is in their system somewhere, since there's no relationship between the two vendors, I changed my online password and the new card never left my wallet except for the one April charge.

No idea how my other card got hacked either, but that is one I use more often so I guess there were more opportunities for hackers to get at the information???

[Bluebelle]

I saw something awhile back on Clark Howard - Visa account numbers are easy to hack. Here's a link.

http://clark.com/personal-finance-cr...dit-card-hack/

I had a Visa hacked twice. Now I don't use the card online. I also signed up for alerts for any spending on it. Need to register my other cards for alerts too.

Unfortunately, this seems to happen all too often. I've had Discover reissue a card for suspicious activity. Shopped at Target during their big hack, etc.

You may want to look into freezing your credit reports to help protect your credit.

[ksleeth]

Originally Posted by Bluebelle

You may want to look into freezing your credit reports to help protect your credit.

Bluebelle, is this the same as locking your ssn? My parents have theirs locked so if they ever need to have their credit run they have to unlock it first. I guess they have some passcode or something that allows them to unlock and, after the credit is run they lock it back up. I keep thinking I need to do it but haven't gotten around to it.

[Orlita]

Clark Howard has a great how-to guide for freezing credit. I did mine in less than 10 minutes. Unfroze it once last year to buy my car. It was easy. You can unfreeze it for a time period or for a certain company only (like I did for my car loan company).

[kittybug]

If you don't want to freeze your credit, you can also put an alert on it, which just ensures if someone tries to fraudulently open a line of credit in your name, they have to jump through many more hoops so it makes it harder. I believe a temporary alert is 90 days, and if you place it with one of the bureaus, they alert the other two automatically. If you have a police report related to identity theft or hacking, you can extend that alert up to seven years, if I remember correctly.

[ksleeth]

Thank you Orlita and Kittybug!