*** MBNA CREDIT CARD WARNING ***

[ChopOMatic]

You might consider this a hot deal if you hold an MBNA credit card. ;-)

I got a call last night from MBNA wanting to verify that we had made a couple of "strange looking" charges. Turns out that these charges were made on a MBNA credit card I got over a year ago that I never even ACTIVATED, much less charged anything to.

Short story given this AM by MBNA is that a list (they didn't say how many) of MBNA credit cards was compromised and complete info for them posted on the Internet. Might want to take a close look at recent activity for your MBNA credit cards.

Edit: The two charges on my card were from something called Global Telephone and Chic Internet. Never heard of either.

---

Thanks for a good warning. This deserves a few of days of "perma-bump" to help all of our members.

AnandTech Moderator

 

[aphex]

bump

 

[gogeeta13]

I just checked my account at MBNAnetaccess.com

I am cleain, but thanks for the heads up!

 

[Cybordolphin]

MBNA... unbelievable..

I fear the net one day will become a very deep, dark lonely place...

 

[ChopOMatic]

<< I am cleain, but thanks for the heads up! >>



Most welcome. Glad you're in good shape.

Chop

 

[lilstevo]

thanks for the heads up

 

[polypterus]

Mine's fine...

dc

 

[WiseOne]

mine's not, i see a charge for 22 bucks. grrrr called but their offices are closed.

 

[sas26]

Thanks, Chop.

BTW, gimme some dadgum IPOs, will ya?

 

[ChopOMatic]

S! Good to see you here!

Chop

 

[JasonH]

Uhh, their offices are never closed. Ever.

Jason

 

[gr8snakee]

Gateway's Prefered Lender is MBNA.


Guess you might end up paying more for that gateway then you thought

As if shipping wasnt enough already





***seriously anyone who has mbna card might wanna look.

 

[purpledemon]

thanks a lot for the heads up ChopOMatic

 

[ChopOMatic]

<< thanks a lot for the heads up ChopOMatic >>



Mighty welcome, Purple and all.

Chop

 

[Dunbar]

No weird charges on mine, luckily I'm the only one who uses it so I know if every charge is legit.

 

[sigmatic]

You might want to be careful about the whole "strange-looking purchases" phone call. A colleague of my mom's fell for a trick like that, and he's a rather sharp individual so I thought I should share this story.

Someone from American Express called him one time and said that there has been "unusual activity" on his card. He was shocked, seeing as how he didn't have an American Express card. The guy was just as surprised, stating "well aren't you mister blah blah living at blah blah street?" (no that's not his real name and address you silly) and then also gave him his phone number and his wife's name. Dumbfounded, he said "yeah, but how did they get a hold of my social security number?" And the AmEx guy goes, "I don't know, sir, but I have it right here in front of me... For security purposes I'm not allowed to say it however..." My mom's colleague then said "well could you at least verify it? The number is ...."

You can guess what happened after that. The guy said the number was correct, the conversation was ended quickly, and he said that the credit card number would be canceled immediately. It was not. That guy wasn't from AmEx, he was the crook. And he smooth-talked his way to a social security number.

Be careful about who you deal with, NEVER give your full social security number (the last 4 numbers may be acceptable), and I even recommend that you ask the person to give you a number you can call them back at. If they say that they can call you back later, assume something is suspicious. If you really feel gutsy, you can play it off by saying "ok" and call the real credit card company. If they say that they never called you nor do they have a reason to, then you can probably talk to their fraud department. They might be able to tell you what to do. This hasn't happened to me fortunately, so I don't really know what would happen. But I thought, especially around this time of the year, that you should all know about this.

All this said and done, I wish you all happy holidays, a merry christmas, and may santa bring you lots of overclockable hardware!

 

[ChopOMatic]

Very good advice, Sigmatic. Have gotten calls like that several times myself and hang up on 'em quickly.

This one was legit, though. The lady asked for no information, gave me the last 4 digits of the card, and offered a callback number. I asked her if I could just call their main number instead and she said, "absolutely." (It's easy enough for someone to give you a callback number and then answer it "MBNA" or any other way they want.) We called the main MBNA number for cardholders and gave them our names. They had the pertinent info in front of them in no time, never asked for a card number, and then disclosed the bad news about this list having been compromised.

Chop

 

[XFreebie]

defectors from a paypal scam gone bad....

 

[Mookie]

Day before Thanksgiving someone made two fraudulent purchases totaling $1100.00 on my MBNA Visa card. Same sorta story, I got a call from MBNA asking if I made these two purchases. I had never heard of either companies and MBNA cancelled my card and took care of the charges.
I wonder what it is that makes a purchase suspicious? Being a die-hard Anandtech hot-deal junkie, frequent card purchases or high dollar purchase has never caused a credit card company to call me before.

 

[dude]

Just checked, I'm clean.

 

[MeanMeosh]

just checked, i'm clean so far

 

[pcmax]

Okay here, but thanks also for the alert.

 

[ChopOMatic]

Their systems look for unusual variations in our purchasing patterns. Not exactly sure what the model is, but in this case mine was easy since it was a brand new card never used at all. My guess is substantial charges by brand new merchant accounts also raise a flag, and by the nature of slimes like these each and every merchant account is gonna be a brand new one.

Chop

 

[priapos1]

My MBNA credit card was stolen 2 years ago along with all my other cards. 4 other credit card companies immediately adjusted my account without fanfare. To this day, MBNA has refused to credit me, claiming I never informed them, and that I should have written them a letter instead of a phone call. I am absolutely outraged. I have left messages, emails, snail mail, --> No response. This is the absoulte worst credit card company I have ever had to deal with. I am currently retaining legal counsel to prevent my credit history from being tarnished. I highly recommend anyone and everyone to avoid doing business with this issuer.

 

[RossMAN]

I don't need to check as I don't have an MBNA credit card

sigmatic - That's good advice but should be common sense to everyone. Never ever give information to someone who initiates a call to you, never ever! I would do what ChopOMatic did, ask for a name, direct phone number including extension and call them back at their regular toll free customer service number ...