GTaylor
Gif Dude
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Wish this was a joke but unfortunately it's real, in this thread http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12704660~mode=flat there are numerous people who have noticed a $29.99 charge on their credit cards from some company they've never heard of, and when they call they're told it's for a DVD that's never been heard of.
I have a feeling it's related to the ChoicePoint incident, for those not familar with ChoicePoint, they work with the credit bureaus and basically...they sell your information to marketers. Citibank will use this to get your info to see if you're pre-qualified for their card, etc. Problem is crooks have set up around 50 bogus companies and have gotten an est. 145,000 personal accounts: SSN, credit history, you name it, and instead of hacking into ChoicePoint's database they simply ask and receive. The number above is a low-ball number, some have assumed the number of accounts infilitrated to be around 3 million!!!
What to do? First off, check your balances, make sure everything that's on there belongs. If you see anything suspicious (Especially for $29.99) then dispute it with the credit card, not the company or the phone # on the statement. By law credit card companies must dispute any charges you say do not belong and the workload is on them, not you. If you have a charge, close and change your account number.
Good news is that your guys in Washington have taken notice and want to do something about it, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7024899/. Sadly only 2 states have laws that notify you if your personal info has been accessed, NY and California, so those of us in Texas would have had our info compromised and we wouldn't have known had ChoicePoint gotten away with sweeping this under the rug (At first ChoicePoint claimed only Cali residents were affected but then under pressure admitted it was nationwide).
Anyways, I'm off the rant/soapbox, hopefully none of you have to go through this, but if you do, hope the info above helps...
I have a feeling it's related to the ChoicePoint incident, for those not familar with ChoicePoint, they work with the credit bureaus and basically...they sell your information to marketers. Citibank will use this to get your info to see if you're pre-qualified for their card, etc. Problem is crooks have set up around 50 bogus companies and have gotten an est. 145,000 personal accounts: SSN, credit history, you name it, and instead of hacking into ChoicePoint's database they simply ask and receive. The number above is a low-ball number, some have assumed the number of accounts infilitrated to be around 3 million!!!
What to do? First off, check your balances, make sure everything that's on there belongs. If you see anything suspicious (Especially for $29.99) then dispute it with the credit card, not the company or the phone # on the statement. By law credit card companies must dispute any charges you say do not belong and the workload is on them, not you. If you have a charge, close and change your account number.
Good news is that your guys in Washington have taken notice and want to do something about it, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7024899/. Sadly only 2 states have laws that notify you if your personal info has been accessed, NY and California, so those of us in Texas would have had our info compromised and we wouldn't have known had ChoicePoint gotten away with sweeping this under the rug (At first ChoicePoint claimed only Cali residents were affected but then under pressure admitted it was nationwide).
Anyways, I'm off the rant/soapbox, hopefully none of you have to go through this, but if you do, hope the info above helps...
