Remember when I wrote about a recent spike in credit card fraud that may be tied to GiftCardMall? At the time, I reported a few small fraudulent charges that appeared on mine and my family’s credit cards. I was relieved that Citi and Chase caught it and were able to reverse the charges quickly while sending me a new card. If only, it was that simple.
Not only have the fraudulent charges been piling on over the last week, but some of them were not even caught by my bank.
As part of my manufactured spending routine, I review my credit card balances every two weeks and update them on my spreadsheet so I can stay on top of my credit utilization rate and pay everything down before the statement closing date. But I noticed something was a little off with my sister’s Citi AAdvantage Platinum Card.
The last time I used it was at GiftCardMall for a $1517.85 purchase. Before that, it was used for a $3,500 charge at Simon Mall. It had been a couple of weeks, so I was surprised when the balance had increased by over $600.
Citi Cards
I reviewed the transactions and sure enough, there was a $621.66 JetBlue purchase on May 18 that I most definitely did not authorize. Neither did my sister, and I was the one in possession of her card this month. So I called Citi to dispute the charge and request a new card, which they thankfully handled very quickly.
After this, I decided to review all of my accounts again. To my surprise, there were even more fraudulent charges. While most of the ones picked up by Citi were less than $100, I found several over $600 that were made out of state. In person.
My mom had two charges totaling $1,176.58 from an online store called Gazelle. When I ran the charges by her, she did not recognize them. Besides, I was the one in possession of her card and I hadn’t used it aside from a GiftCardMall purchase. So I called Citi again to dispute the charge and request a new card.
I had assumed all the fraudulent charges on my dad’s card had been taken care of, but there was one their fraud department had missed. It was for $24 at a UK-based website.
U.S. Bank
By now, I combed through every single card’s transaction history for the last month and came up with several more fraudulent charges. My dad had a $649 charge on his Korean SkyPass card. It was for in-person purchases at a wholesale club in Florida.
Needless to say, we had no clue what this was for and U.S. Bank promptly took care of it.
American Express
My brother had a couple of fraudulent charges on his Amex Marriott card, but the one that slipped through the cracks was for $78.17 at DoorDash. Interestingly enough, the perp’s name was listed on the transaction line as well as the restaurant: Taqueria Guadalajara in San Francisco.
Yes, I did Yelp the place and added it to my “Favorites” because the tacos look delicious and I’m totally going there on my next visit to SF. Hey, at least something good came of this.
Chase
My Chase Freedom Unlimited card was hit with some pretty random charges. We’re talking $1 – $1.95 on a resume builder website (Who charges $1 for resume editing and can I please get their contact info?).
There was also a $275 charge at Groupon, $93 at “Preschool Portrait” and two ~$8 charges at random merchants. All of them unauthorized.
What They All Have in Common
What’s interesting about all of these fraudulent charges is that they were made on or after May 18. And what’s weird is that most of them (with the exception of the JetBlue charge) came through right after a GiftCardMall order posted. Coincidence? I have no idea. But so far, every single card I’ve used at GiftCardMall has been hacked.
Luckily, they’re all getting replaced and maybe GiftCardMall will eventually respond to my inquiry. So far, it’s been crickets.
Another bonus is that I picked up on a $244 interest fee on my brother’s Discover it Miles Card. I made a payment for the full statement closing balance on time, yet a day later this charge was assessed. I called Discover, they apologized and said they’d apply it to the next statement.
Why am I writing about it here? Because my memory has been awful lately and by writing about the charge, I’m hoping I’ll remember to check my account in two weeks to make sure it was credited.
Anyway, if you haven’t thoroughly reviewed your credit card activities over the last month, I highly recommend you do so asap. Especially if you’ve used your cards at GiftCardMall. I ended up finding $2,936.36 worth of fraudulent charges on various accounts. If you count the $244 interest charge from Discover, that increases to $3,180.36.
That is a lot of money to lose to fraud in a month, but thankfully credit card companies will cover it. So review your charges and report any unauthorized activity as soon as you can.
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So strange you have had so many as I use gcm 2 x weekly and haven’t had any fraudulent charges on any of my cards. I will keep checking daily though !
Definitely do. I’m keeping an eye on the cards that weren’t hit, because I’m sure that’s coming.
Comment on DoC says guest checkout card data was captured in full while those who logged in only had last 4 digits of their cards revealed. My experience seems to confirm that – had over $60K purchases in the last month and no fraud charges across multiple cards.
Surprised you only check every two weeks. I’m constantly bumping up against card limits and making multiple payments every statement as I cycle my limits several times. Typically check several times a week, and if I’m hitting things hard, will check daily.
I have way too many cards I’m responsible for, so if I did it more often it would take way too much time. I also don’t cycle my credit limits, for the most part.
I recently had 2 instances of fraud on 2 separate Chase Sapphire Reserve cards. First was a “test” charge in the U. K. according to Chase which they caught and they promptly replaced the card. The second was on the replacement card at a hotel in Utah 1,400 miles away from where I live and according to Chase was a “physical swipe” charge. Interestingly, I had only used that card twice before the fraudulent charge, both times at small, family run dining establishments. Chase promptly replaced that card, too, but I did have to go through the paperwork for that one.
I now check my credit cards multiple times a day! (Thank goodness for mobile apps)
Glad you caught all of that. I’m not so surprised by the smaller charges, but the $600+ ones they really should have caught.
I had over $1,500 of fraudulent charges made at lenovo.com on a new citi Aadvantage card that had only been used…at Giftcardmall.com! Fortunately Citi canceled the transaction (still showing as pending) though you have expected the bank to be on top of this.
Got an email from GCM.com: “In keeping with cybersecurity practices, we regularly ask account holders to reset their passwords. The next time that you log in, you will be asked to create and confirm a new password before accessing your account details.” No acknowledgment or apologies of a potential security issue on their site. Interesting….
Interesting, but not surprising. An apology would mean that they acknowledge the breach and accept responsibility for their security failure. They’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming before they take the blame for this boondoggle.
That’s not surprising – they don’t want to take on liability. I don’t have an actual GCM account – I always check out as guest. So I don’t think the thieves hacked individual accounts but rather GCM’s database.
I have an account, It seems that every time you put your credit card information at check out then you get the info stolen. I am saving my CCs info in the profile so when I check out is charged automatically and not issues afterwards.
That’s nuts! I’m holding off on using any of my replacement cards at GCM right now. I’m still going to max out the cards that haven’t been hacked yet and keep a close eye on the activity.
@Ric I do the same, saving cc info inmy profile and so far I have not detected any fraudulent charges, I ‘d used multiple cards from @mx, ch@se, boa, Bcl@ys and fidelity at GCM. The only additional info that I can think of is that I use my work computer that is laded with tons of program to mitigate malware, I wonder if when the site was not “working” (checkout button not working” it was someone else “hacking the information. Anyways I will update my comment if I detect anything unusual.
btw I had to change my password per GCM …
These thieves do tend to rack up spend on travel and electronics. Citi has been good about this so far. Every new card was overnighted to me.
Virtually every card you mentioned allows you to set up a text and email alert every time a charge is made. It’s easier to catch fraud early by doing so.
Yes, I agree with AnnieG. You really should sign up ASAP when you get any credit card for the text and email alerts when ANY spend is made. Some you have to put a minimum charge of at least $10 but some you can put in any amount. There are different categories like alert me when a charge is made without my card, international charges, amounts over $X, etc.
The only bad thing about this is the constant reminder that my wife likes to shop! Ha.
Unfortunately that would mean incessant text messages for me. It’s just easier for me to look closely at my transaction history every two weeks.
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I got AMEX Business Marriott Bonvoy fraudulent charged for $1 in AIRBNB, Chase Ink Preferred $8.99 in Chipotle Online, Sears MasterCard $697 in TaiLopez.com all these charges were made last week and all cards used in Giftcardmall.com
I called banks and they took care of these charges and are investigating, also called GCM.com and submit a complaint, it is really hard to know where the fraudulent activity is coming from when all charges are online, I just set up all my alerts in $0 and the bank immediately send me a text, besides I always check my accounts daily.