My visa card is mine alone. Safe in my wallet. I am cautious with on-line shopping. I check vendors carefully. I've only ever had it abused once and that was a clerk at a Self-Storage unit in Toronto who ran up a few thousand dollars on it five minutes after I left her office but the good news was that she was arrested and charged.
Imagine my shock today when my comfort zone was rudely interrupted when all these euro charges from Brussels, Belgium showed up on my statement. How on earth can this happen? Individually the amounts are not enough to be suspicious but overall they add up to a significant number. I imagine a large cartel of unscrupulous wankers selling off hoards of such numbers grabbed from goddess knows where. Abe books? Walmart on line? Itunes?
Credit card fraud cost the US 16 billion dollar in 2016. No numbers exist for Canada though at one point I believe it was nudging close to 2 billion dollars.
Meanwhile all my fraudulent charges are suspended, the Visa fraud unit is on top of it all and I'll be getting a new card in 10-15 days.
A time consuming business for me today, I logged a couple of hours between the bank, being put on hold for multiple personnel at visa, and taking a verbal oath that all I said was true, etc. I spent a fair whack of that time wondering when, where and how the breach occurred.
Anyone else out there with a fraud story?
