Jan 08, 2010

Credit is Due

Ever been a victim of credit card fraud? I had to cancel one of mine five days before Christmas. The holiday shopping season started for me on Black Friday—fortunately, I got most of it done then. Some of that shopping was done online. And while I’m not certain that it was shopping online on this day that resulted in my card being compromised, I am confident I’ve identified the merchant—thanks not to a news report but to an online community I visit, powered by vBulletin’s forum technology.

Online communities are good news for the companies they are designed around, as the people who frequent these communities are fans of these companies and their stuff. But as hype and buzz about products and services are generated on these forums, so, too, is news. Most of the time it is good. Word of a security breach, not good.

The fraudulent activity on my credit card took place more than three weeks following my Black Friday shopping excursion, and one week after a merchant I shopped with that day issued a statement on its blog about a possible security compromise. Sometime in between, I learned that my credit card number might have been at risk.

When I first read about it at the forum, I wondered if perhaps I wasn’t going to be affected. But the list of community members dealing with credit card fraud charges continued to grow. Those experiencing the problem determined they had one thing in common: a purchase from one particular merchant.

Then the merchant released a statement about the possible breach.

Eventually my number, quite literally, was up. To my credit card company’s credit, they alerted me to three suspicious charges within 24 hours of their occurrence.

I contacted the merchants of two of those charges (the third was declined before it went through), and I was able to obtain some information, including a general geographic area where the offending charges occurred.

Back at the online community, I compared my information with others. There was definitely a matching of details.

Maybe someday I’ll know exactly what happened. For now, there is an official investigation. Meanwhile, a big bah humbug goes out to people who devote their efforts to stealing credit card numbers, and kudos goes to online communities for their crafty information-sharing abilities.

Posted By: Susan E. Stegemann