fraudulent transaction on credit card

[worrywort]

how can i trace who ordered item and where from using my credit card?

[gelda]

I don't think you can, I had the same problem some months ago loosing nearly �900 pounds, I contacted the fraud department of my bank and they told me the police would deal with it but they wouldn't disclose who took the money, I did eventuall get it all back though.

[Ethel]

It is considered to be none on your business as you are not the victim, the bank is as they will have to refund the money to your card.

So it is impossible for you to trace the fraudulent user.

[worrywort]

so even though they cant tell me, they can trace who it was themselves right. even if the fraud was done abroad in another country? why wont they tell us? how do they actually trace these frauds themselves? maybe i could figure out who did it to me myself. just want to know if it was someone who i know or someone who got ahold of my details. so ideally id like to know how the banks trace the fraudsters.thank you.if you can help id appreciate it. thanks again.

[Buenchico]

(Multi-part post):

There are various ways that a fraudulent user of a credit card might be traced. It depends upon how good they are at covering their tracks. Generally, the banks don't have sufficient investigatory powers, so it's down to the police.

Firstly, some fraudsters are so amateurish that they'll order stuff to be delivered to their home address (possibly even using their own name!), so it's not exactly rocket-science to track them down ;-)

Although such obvious errors might not happen very often, it does illustrate one of the difficulties of making fraudulent orders via the internet. (i.e. the fraudster has to specify a delivery address. Even if he uses a temporary address, the police could still call round, take fingerprints and ask the neighbours about the guy who was living there).

[Buenchico]

Another way that internet fraudsters can be traced (unless they take care to cover their tracks) is through their IP address. Everyone using the internet is allocated a unique (but usually temporary) IP address, so that the data they request gets sent to the right PC. Online sellers often log the IP addresses of customers placing orders. This is sufficient to identify which country the user is in, and which ISP they're using. The police can then ask the ISP to divulge the identity of the person using that IP address at the time the purchase was made. However it's possible to hide your IP address by using a proxy server or the 'Tor Project' (which routes traffic through lots of proxy servers). Also, knowing that the subscriber who was allocated that IP address was Fred Bloggs doesn't necessarily help if Fred Bloggs lives with his wife and several adult children, since any one of them could have been using the internet when the purchase was made.

Where a purchase is made 'in store' rather than online, most stores will be able to track down which till it passed through (and the time will be recorded by the credit card company). So it might be possible to use CCTV footage to show the fraudster making the purchase. (However, with the advent of 'chip & pin', in store fraudulent purchases are probably relatively rare).

[Buenchico]

You ask how your credit card details could have got into the hands of fraudsters. One route is by using your card at a retail outlet where the details are 'skimmed' when you use the card. (At one time, there was a major scam where lots of independent garages, and even a few within the big chains, were secretly recording the details of all cards which passed through their hands. These details were then sold on to fraudsters.

At other times, lax security within a legitimate company can lead to the potential loss of data. For example, I used to work on the railways. Each day, details of tickets ordered by phone (but to be collected at the station ticket office) were faxed through, along with the credit card details of the purchaser (so that he could use his card as identity when collecting the tickets). Quite often the ticket office fax machine was busy, or out of order, so the information was faxed through to me in the station supervisor's office. That meant that I regularly received long lists of credit card details, including names, card numbers, expiry dates and security codes (from the back of the card). When I was busy, those faxes could often lie around on my desk for hours before I had time to take them to the ticket office. My office was often left unstaffed and any colleague (or member of the public) could easily nip in and take a photocopy of the fax. (I always tried to keep those faxes secure but other supervisors were less diligent. Even then, a fax could have come through while there was no supervisor in the office, and be copied by a colleague before the supervisor was even aware that the fax existed).

Such poor security practices are probably quite commonplace in many organisations, so it's hardly surprising when credit card details are diverted to fraudsters.

Chris

[Ice.Maiden]

Hi Chris. nice and informative as usual. Horrible when it happens though. i had to wait almosy 3 months before I got my money back. : (

[gelda]

So did I Ice, apparently someone had bought airline tickets with mine.

[annie0000]

I got my money back more or less immediately - I rarely used the card at the time - the very occasional internet purchase - so it was fairly obvious when someone started buying large numbers of mobile top ups with it, especially as I don't own a mobile phone. Presumably it would be fairly easy to trace via the sim? Too complicated for me to work out.

[annie0000]

Just a thought, do you have on-line banking? - that is where I noticed the activity on the card - and I also know that they were getting mobile phone top ups - virgin and another that I can't remember. You may be able to get some clues from that and then contact the companies concerned - if it is already the subject of a police investigation, they probably wont give you any details.

[annie0000]

Just a thought, do you have on-line banking? - that is where I noticed the activity on the card - and I also know that they were getting mobile phone top ups - virgin and another that I can't remember. You may be able to get some clues from that and then contact the companies concerned - if it is already the subject of a police investigation, they probably wont give you any details.

[Velvetee]

It's not up to you to trace the person. Your Creditcard Company's fraud department will deal with it. The main thing is that you don't have to pay for the transaction, which you probably won't.

I've had both my bank account and creditcard frauded before and on both ocassions it was dealt with, without any cost to me.

[Ethel]

annie - what makes you think it is online banking that was the source of the fraud?

[annie0000]

I never use the card anywhere else Ethel - I dont even have a pin number - well I do, but I don't know it.

[Ethel]

Do you mean online banking or online shopping? You don't need your card for online banking

[annie0000]

Sorry Ethel - bit confusing there - I think the fraud was through online shopping, but I discovered it looking at my on-line banking - it is a bank credit card and I can monitor it on line. I was therefore able to see the transactions and spot the fraud.

[Ethel]

I see. That just meant you could spot it earlier. :)

If you have only ever used your account for online shopping, that must be where the fraud occurred.

[annie0000]

Absolutely Ethel - I can totally understand where worrywort is coming from because it would have been good to know the source of the problem i.e. which site had allowed the fraud so that I could have avoided it in future or at least know that the offending person had been removed from that store.

[worrywort]

thank you all for your help especisally chris very informative, just the way i lke it, thanks again.