My Credit Card Story (Part II)

I'd actually wanted to update my blog earlier on but it wasn't so easy during the past few days. You can blame it on the lame internet connection here in Malaysia. I love my country, but sometimes it just sucks having such an unstable Internet connection here.

I also busted about 4 hours of my own productivity time just 2 days ago by going to a local cyber cafe and played Warcract DOTA. Got beaten flat even as a team and went back poorer by $3.50! LOL.

Oh Yes, back to my story about my credit card fraud. Well, ladies and gentleman. The culprit will be caught and the merchant bank has successfully traced his name and IC number (yes, he is Singaporean - too bad).

Complete with house address and mobile number. How cool is that?

So, here's what I did:

1. Submitted the verification form back to my credit card bank
2. Stated that this person is not authorised by me to perform the $4000 transaction
3. Mailed it
4. Went to the police station to report the "crooks" details
5. Go home and relax

Kinda simple but thats exactly what I did. You should be able to envision that what ever you're doing, the money will come. No worries. Just hang in there, do what you have to do and wait for the best to happen in your life.

Sounds a little creepily close to the Law Of Attraction I might add. Hmmmm.

Yeah, I'm still in Ipoh and it's like 12:37pm as I write this post. Feel exhausted shopping all day with my friend and enjoying the fresh seafood. Remind me to put up some nice pictures of the food we ate. Just the pictures thats all.

Till next post.

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Becareful About Using Your Credit Card!

This will be a really different post from my normal marketing message.

I felt that it's my responsibility to share with my fellow friends (you) about this. True Story.

I never expected this to happen to me, not in a decade! But it did and it's happening all over the world. This would be a shocker to you probably that an affiliate marketer like me would be hit with this tragedy as well *sigh*.

Anyway, I received my credit card statement somewhere at the end of May and didn't actually take a peek at it. My wife was telling me "Hey! You gotta look at this statement...". I was so tired that night I didn't actually bother to check it and I was sure that it's just a normal statement that "blah, blah" stuff, whatever. Baaaaad move.... Vern...

You see, I don't spend that much money. Just basically online stuff.

Went to bed that night thinking that I should just take a look the next morning.

I was glad I did.

A shocker of about S$4000 (US$2700) was made on my credit card on the same day!

Honest To The Heavens, I never ever spent that much in a day. Not even when I was in France having my 2 weeks trip. Heck no. So, what did I do?

Yeah, you bet I called up the credit card company and they even told me "are you sure you didn't make that transaction?", "you mean you don't remember making that purchase?", "you want me to check and verify a transaction that you made for you?".

*frustrating* *frustrating* *frustrating*

... Did you ever get that feeling that your conviction of the truth was so strong you could swear by a lightning? That's the moment right there. For this post sake, I will not mention the credit card company here and just let this serve as an educational note. Okay, let's carry on.


Here's what I did in about 5 steps when I discovered a fraud transaction on my credit card:

1. Contact The Lost/Stolen Card Call Centre and report it. Block it or something.
2. No matter what, make a police report and as for a 'dispute form'
3. Attach the reply of the 'dispute form' with a copy of your statement & police report.
4. Send it immediately.
5. Wait a few days for confirmation of the credit card company, if not call them again.

I never went past step 5 because it all went pretty smooth for me. However, the investigation would take about 90 days to see if it's valid or not. So, I'll keep you updated about the result. It's been something like a month plus already.

Here's the thing, it's an online transaction. How did I know that wasn't my transaction? easy. It's for payment on a phone bill. I never paid my phone bill online and definitely not with my credit card - ever. Plus, my entire lives phone bill was never over $300 a month. You do the math, a total of S$4000 in a single month? No way, hosay.

Alright, situation is simmered down for now because they already got my dispute form and my credit is temporary restored back to normal. Hope for the best, hope for me. Okay, no flaming needed here. This happened all a month ago.

By the way, I'd like to leave a resource for you from Visa International on protecting your credit card from fraud. Check it when you're available. Who knows, anything can happen, right?

Golden Advice: Fraud Prevention Visa Credit Cards

Be safe,

Vern

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