This week Whine Wednesday deals with an unfortunate issue that comes from having credit cards.
I tend to check my various credit card activity once or twice a week to check that there are no unauthorized activity and that payments and credits have posted correctly.
When I was looking at my Amex activity yesterday, I came across this one line that I was not familiar with:
There are often merchants whose transactions on statements post under a completely different name than what is their trading one.
I checked the Codeacademy website, and it appears that they are selling computer coding courses. When I called Amex, they told me that this merchant was coded as a “hotel.” The transaction was disputed, and the card closed. I may have a new card in my hand sometime next week.
Here are some other credit card cloning and fraud issues that we have covered:
MAJOR RANT: Housekeeping Theft & Credit Card Cloning In Brazil
Conclusion
This was one of the cards that I had used to pay for award and other tickets on BA’s website that was leaking the payment information to an outside third party. The breach could have taken place elsewhere too.
I won’t be at the address on file with Amex before sometime in May. They, however, agreed to send the replacement one to a friend’s address in the UK, where I will be early next week.
It was a surprise how long it took for someone to misuse this Amex, considering how often I had swiped and used it for online purchases in the past. Nowadays, I mainly use it only for purchases within the Euro-area due to high currency conversion fees.
