Recent Fraudulent Use Of Credit Card

[KEITH97M3]

First off, let me make this clear. I am not accusing any of the suppliers for what I am about to say. I know how a few people here might be quick to jump to conclusions so I just want to be clear on this. I also order from many other suppliers who are not from this forum so please do not jump to conclusions. I did not post on the "other forums" because I know what would happen to me if I dared. I posted here because the majority of the people here are more mature and level headed.

The reason for what I am about to ask is because I just so happened to be lurking the "other forums" when I came across a post where the same thing has happened to other people just recently this past week. I know websites get hacked, eastmall has been hacked and was down for over 2 weeks and just days ago came back online. I know when a website is supposedly secure when you see the "https" in the address bar when you enter personal information but I also know that websites can be hacked.

I was just wondering if anyone else here who makes e-cig related online purchases has had their credit card/ Visa check card information stolen recently. Also if any suppliers here have been hacked, virused, had their computer stolen or know of any other of their customers who have recently experienced this because from what information I have gathered from the "other forums is that the most likely culprit is the Credit Card billing companies that vendors use.

Here are a few links from the "other forums" where people have just recently had the same thing happen to them.
Major Fricken Issue - Also: I screwed up - Vapers Forum
More CC fraud - E-Cigarette Forum
Apology to Harry, VaporBomb and Other Adventures... - Vapers Forum

Just 2 days ago I was balancing my expenses and noticed 4 charges in row that I did not recognize. After looking into this carefully and calling my bank, it seems someone had stolen my credit card number along with personal information and purchased items online. I use one card for ecig stuff and another for utilities so I can separate and see what I spend for necessities and for pleasure. I pay cash for everything else because I hate using credit unless I really have to. Well it seems the one I use for ecigs is the one in question, fraudulent charges started last week on August 18th and the again today on August 26th.

I called and went to the bank as soon as I found out about the first charges and withdrew all my money except for $1 so in case people tried using it again then I could obtain more info on where the purchases are coming from and where items are being sent. My suspicions were correct as I received a call from a company that said someone had tried to put in another order earlier this morning but they wanted to verify it with me due to the ship to address was not mine. Now I have an address where the ordered items were to be sent and the Police and Visa Fraud department will now have more information to go on. I cannot narrow down the list of possible suspects because there are just far too many ecig companies that I ordered from in the past year with well over $5000 spent.

FYI, I stopped from making anymore purchases from UK based companies because 1 week after ordering from 2 of them, I started receiving "spam fishing" mail sent to my home from UK addresses. This was over 4 months ago but still I cannot rule them out.

My question is, can the owner of the website see your credit card number when ordering and paying with a Visa card or not, and if so, how can the owner be sure that their computer is safe from hackers if information like that can be pulled up from their computer. If that is the case then I have to assume that if their computer gets hacked, hackers will be able to see what ever they are viewing or have viewed on their computer making it easy to obtain that kind of info.

I tend to have faith in people, always give them the benefit of the doubt and all of the suppliers here have shown good faith to me on every order. Due to the recent happenings, I have to start taking some kind of precaution when making online orders. If anyone here knows of a safer more secure way, please let me know as I would hate to have to buy things direct from china through paypal deposits only. Seeing how most suppliers only accept credit cards, I do not know what options are available but I do know that I have to do something or the same thing will most likely happen again.

Aloha, Keith

[jcamacho]

I'm one of the ones hat got hit with charges from Blizzard entertainment. Seems I'm not the only one having problems with this company, reported it to my bank and they are investigating. I really don't have any idea how they obtained my CC number.

[Elizabeth815]

Seems like that is happening everywhere. It happened to my husband's account also recently. Luckily the bank caught it and called him right away. I was in Nevada at the time so I don't really know all the details.

[capevette]

Hey Keith,
I had the same thing happen twice recently!! Very similar situations. I received a call from the bank saying they have suspicious activity on my account. One was for a $25 E-gift card for Home Depot and the other was a $179.95 now the strange part. The call was for the $25 E-Gift card and when I'm talking to the person the other charge happens while I'm chatting with her!! She says did you just try and charge $179.95 No I said this seems to be a rampant problem with the e-cig store/vendors. I only use one card for the e-cig purchases also to make it easier. This is the second time something like this has happened, I now use the charge cards that you buy and reload with $$ I only put a few $$. I have my suspicions as to the culprit websites/vendors and I'm not to happy. I can't say yet who I think it might be I'm still not 100% sure. I am holding off on purchases from a couple of vendors till some info comes back to me from a friend who's investigating this a bit.

It sure would be nice if we could use PP or something like that to do these purchases as this problem looks to be prevalent with our vendors!!!! I'm glad I have enough supplies for a while.

Vape On
CV

[Baby Huey-TTTeliquids.com]

I cannot speak for all other vendors, but the majority of us use Authorize.net, and we are not privy to the card number or account. I hope you guys figure out what is going on, and I would respectfully ask that if our company may be one of the ones you may question, bring it to our attention ASAP so we can get to the bottom of this. I would hope ours is not the company though, as we have had no other problems or complaints of this nature. If you do find out it is a vendor, I know i at least for one would like to know about it, so that this behavior can be rectified and stopped asap.

[YuckFou]

I'm one of the ones hat got hit with charges from Blizzard entertainment. Seems I'm not the only one having problems with this company, reported it to my bank and they are investigating. I really don't have any idea how they obtained my CC number.

same here with the blizzard entertainment fraudulent charges.. keep an eye on your transactions ppl cuz sumthin fishy is goin on

[capevette]

Huey your site is probably OK, I have yet to order from you so thats eliminates TTT e-liquid. Sorry bro but I will be ordering in the near future.

Vape On
CV

[DigitalC]

Yo!! seriously. This credit card stuff is happening all the time right now. Just this Tues I checked my Business Account as usual and right there at the TOP was a charge for $347.28 from Kohl's.. I was like WTF??? Now the card that was used was by business VISA check card that is linked to my business account for Digitalciggz.com..so I'm even more confused because I don't use that card online, that much. So I called Kohls and reported the fraud. Here's what I found out. The person who used the card had my Billing Address and full name, They also Made the purchase from and IP address that originated in MY OWN HOME TOWN, The phone number and email address they used for the purchase did not match mine (of course) and they had the item (a garmin GPS UNIT) shipped to a address in California, but not anywhere near where I live. So I canceled the card, Filed a police Report, and had Kohls send all the data to the Police for investigation. My guess is that some business (or someone who works at a business) here in my town has a swiper machine, or additional hardware hooked up to the machine to capture all my data, I only say this because the IP address used to make the purchase was based here in Santa Rosa CA..anyway..I got my money back with in 3 days, they stopped the shipment in mid track before it reached the address, so that was cool.. I guess my point is that there are many ways they LAMES can get our credit card info and it dose'nt always have to be online, and that because of the economy it seems this kind of stuff is happening more, and more lately..

[K2-Kevin]

Interesting timing on this post.
I just got hit with a $471.00 charge from Air dublin and a small $1.50 charge to some TBIZ site. Bank took care of it after dispute, but certainly annoying. Im going back to my old ways of doing Internet business from now on. I setup a bank account and put very little money in to avoid large unexpected charges like this to be approved. Can be a pain to continually have to transfer fund to that account, but worth it in the end.

[VAPEAHOLIC]

Just called my bank ! FREEZE THAT SHIT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!!!!!!!BTW Hey Kevin