credit card number of a friend must have been stolen

[Makaveli2007]

A friend of mine moved (to another country) and someone misused her credit card (without authorization obviously) twice already. She got the money back from her bank each time, but well...

I'm wondering how this can possibly happen? And how I (or she) can protect myself against that happening to me?

She said she only used that credit card for gas and buying things offline nothing online (she had not used it online in her home country before that - it's a new card).

Online shopping (that she didnt do) was done in England.

Any ideas how that couldh appen and how she/I could protect herself/myself against this?

PS: when I say "someone misused her credit card",etc. I have no idea if it was the same person twice or two different people..

[bwnbwn]

Well the first thing to do is cancel the card and get another one.

I can't believe the bank will allow a credit card to be used multiple times for fraud.

Just plain wonderful for us ecommerce people fighting this battle everyday multiple fraud orders from the same card.

Just shows ya how much a bank cares.

[edited by: bwnbwn at 3:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 3, 2010]

[HRoth]

The only way you can protect yourself from credit card fraud is not to use a credit card at all. Seriously. You are more apt to have your credit card compromised by real-world shops than by online shops. With lots of online shops, you interact directly with the payment gateway and the shop owners and workers never see your number. Not true with any gas stations. Latest thing I have heard is people taking a pic of a credit card with their cell phone. My cards have been compromised several times in the past year. I believe that most of them came out of the same diner I frequent. Since I have started using cash only there, it hasn't happened. The fraudsters attempted to make purchases in Wisconsin and in London. I'm in NY.

[Makaveli2007]

Interesting information guys - thanks.

Ive never used my credit card offline (only got one for online payments)...will probably continue to do just that.

Ive been thinking of getting a separate account/credit card for paying online and making sure that account never has too much money in it; and cant go below 0 (so that if something does happen, it cant be too bad)

[ytswy]

I wouldn't worry too much - you are not responsible for the losses and will always get your money back from your card issuer (who doesn't care since they pass the loss on to the merchant who took the card). As long as you keep an eye on your statement then all you are going to suffer is a temporary inconvenience.

The only precaution I would recommend is that it is worth sticking to using a credit card rather than a debit card - cards will get compromised from time to time since the system is inherently insecure, and it is better to have an unauthorised charge on your credit card than have money go missing from your bank account, however temporarily.