*** MBNA CREDIT CARD WARNING ***

[blots]

Damn!
Just found a weird charge on my sonycard-
$22 bucks charged by earthlink.net 2 days ago???---
dont think so

 

[fatkorean]

<< I can't believe this get's moved to the top of the listing in the forums. Bogus charges happen all the time. With millions of cards floating around, you'll eventually get "hit". I just found one on my American Express card for $88 from a place called PayNow (whatever that is). Should I post a "HOT DEAL" about that? Nah.... schtuff happens.

Also, no one else is reporting this probem with MBNA, so it's a LOT of negative press for a company that's done nothing and isn't a nation wide problem based on the responses here. >>



Its now about that. Its the fact that their list of credit cards at MBNA was compromised. This isn't one person getting his card stolen, this is a whole list of various people who use that credit card company.

 

"Its now about that. Its the fact that their list of credit cards at MBNA was compromised. This isn't one person getting his card stolen, this is a whole list of various people who use that credit card company."

Uhmm . . . do you care to list those "various" people you speak of? I haven't seen sufficient number of people filing complaints/grievances to constitute the original poster's claims. I do appreciate his interest in making sure no one else falls a victim, but I do not in all honesty think it merits a stay on the top in hot deals; or perhaps this should even be moved to the Off Topic zone.

I definitely have to agree with Bob61 on this. I just got scammed on my American Express Blue student card. My account just got compromised with strange charge from Switzerland, an area I have never transacted before. It also had this "Payment Solutions" title. This happened just about two weeks ago. I contacted American Express to find out what was going on. I was told they had no info (i.e., no phone number, address) about this supposed company that charged my account and they could do nothing for me at the moment. I was told I had to wait until my billing cycle period ended and then I could dispute it. This was a charge for $14+ on a card I hadn't used for a long time now.

So, I'm sure, like Bob61 and I, other individuals have fallen victims of scam with their American Express cards, so would that constitute a notice for every incident? Geez, I'm starting to think a lot of AE customers' accounts were compromised. I understand in this case the original poster had reason to believe this was not an isolated case; but from the number of and contents of the responses so far, it seems to me the original poster may have been misinformed or may be mistaken about what actually took place. Again, I am thankful for the notice from ChopOmatic, and I do not think the original poster is responsible for the decision to keep this up. The mods are responsible for it, and I would hope they make the right decision to release it at this point.

 

[LiQiCE]

The reason this message got a perma-bump is because the CSR at MBNA said that there was a list of MBNA cards that were effected and if it effects more than one person then everyone should be made aware of it, so you can get it taken care of immediately. I have been watching my MBNA card more carefully thanks to this post and I think its important to get the word out. Better safe than sorry right?

 

[ChopOMatic]

<< Turns out, someone in Russia (!!!) tried to charge $3 on my card. >>



My Citibank card was one of the ones compromised at Egghead during their fiasco and a $10 charge showed up from some telecom in Moscow. Then on this current MBNA thing, one of the charges was from something called Global Telephone. Looks like a telecom is a favorite front to use by CC Slimers.

 

[Bob61]

<<
I definitely have to agree with Bob61 on this. I just got scammed on my American Express Blue student card. My account just got compromised with strange charge from Switzerland, an area I have never transacted before. It also had this "Payment Solutions" title. This happened just about two weeks ago. I contacted American Express to find out what was going on. I was told they had no info (i.e., no phone number, address) about this supposed company that charged my account and they could do nothing for me at the moment. I was told I had to wait until my billing cycle period ended and then I could dispute it. This was a charge for $14+ on a card I hadn't used for a long time now.

So, I'm sure, like Bob61 and I, other individuals have fallen victims of scam with their American Express cards, so would that constitute a notice for every incident?

<<
Looks like there's more of us with Amerinan Express that got scammed with charges than the MBNA cards -- seems like this would warrant a "warning" fixed at the top of the topics on the forum....

 

[Bob61]

<< The reason this message got a perma-bump is because the CSR at MBNA said that there was a list of MBNA cards that were effected and if it effects more than one person then everyone should be made aware of it, so you can get it taken care of immediately. I have been watching my MBNA card more carefully thanks to this post and I think its important to get the word out. Better safe than sorry right? >>

Do we really know if that's the case, or a case of someone making a moutain out of a mole hill? Heck, since me and luvly both got stung this month, I can also claim that I talked with a CSR and was told that many other cards were hit -- fact is it happens every month to credit card companies -- no big surprise there.

Also, given the shyness of Anandtech to tick off companies due to legal ramifications (i.e. Staples coupons), you would think that they would extend caution before posting such highly negative press about MBNA, a company who's done nothing wrong and in my opinion isn't really an epedmic requiring such a high profile to this topic.

Just my two cents.... as always, your mileage may vary.

 

[dentalboy]

heads up play man kool!

 

[manly]

<< The reason this message got a perma-bump is because the CSR at MBNA said that there was a list of MBNA cards that were effected and if it effects more than one person then everyone should be made aware of it, so you can get it taken care of immediately. I have been watching my MBNA card more carefully thanks to this post and I think its important to get the word out. Better safe than sorry right? >>



Personally I'm dubious because large, profitable corporations like MBNA would never allow their CSRs to admit any type of systemic breach of security that could cause the company a liability. That of course doesn't mean a CSR didn't mistakenly admit something that should have been internal information.

These type of problems are usually hush-hushed, and vehemently denied if they ever come to light.

Finally, as far as small charges, this is a usual CC fraud ploy. The defrauder wants to test if the account-holder is carefully watching his account, so the defrauder places a tiny mysterious charge on the CC. Later on (could be anytime), if they discover that the account (number) is still valid, they'll come back and rack up significant fraudulent charges.

 

[blots]

hey--i need some advice
there was a random charge on my cc 3 days ago--i called citibank today and theyll dispute it.
should i just keep my cc the same---or should i get a new number card?
--ive never had to deal with this b4 and was just wondering if i should worry about further random charges.

 

[Thegman240]

I would call themup and tell them you want to report your current card as lost(this is what you have to do even if it is not lost) and that way, they will cancel that # and suspend all future activity on it. They will then issue you a new card # and send you a new card in about 4-5 days. I have done this procedure before to protect myself becuase I do alot of shopping on the net and my # could be in many many dtatbases that can and may be hacked. It's always a good idea to cancel your card and get a new one after a year or so, even if you don't use it often. On another note, if you used your card to purchase anything from eddie bauer during the whole coupon fiasco where people were using the coupons more than one, they have been known to charge you back for the coupon difference a few billing cycles later and to prevent them from doing this(which is illegal in itself) you must cancel your card and get a new one. Any attempt at charging your old card would result in a declined ststus for eddie bauer. Just a heads up.

\Good luck!

Greg

 

[incallisto]

I've been an MBNA Visa cardholder for a year. They are a fine company from my experience.

 

[IT4Me]

THANKS!

 

[Jdog]

Yea, MBNA blows. They've stuck late charges on my card many times, even when I had proof of delivery that they received it before the due date. Stay away from these non-professional credit card issuers.


FYI, MBNA is the world's largest CC issuer, so I'd call them professionals.

I have had great success with MBNA. They promptly removed a late fee in their early days on mbnanetaccess (they intimated payments posted the same day, but they only 'usually' post same day.)
Granted, I use my University Of Colorado Alumni Platinum (GO BUFFS! Beat the Ducks!) for fewer than $500/yr, but their service has almost been equal to AmEx (almost )

Every credit card company runs into these types of things, and I would merely assume only MBNA cards were compromised. Yes, there may be a list, but the CSR also didn't say that only MBNA's cards had been nabbed.

 

[ChopOMatic]

To anyone who is dubious as to whether MBNA told me what I said, you're sadly mistaken. It is exactly what MBNA said; in fact, the rep went so far as to say that the numbers stolen were a list of sequential numbers that were subsequently posted on the Internet. I'm an honest, mature adult and I sure don't get my kicks by posting childish crap on message boards. I posted it as a heads-up, assuming there were lots of MBNA CC holders who frequent this forum who could find themselves at risk.

And why the thread crapping, anyway? Thought that was quasi-forbidden here. If you don't like the topic, how about just don't click on it? It's really quite simple, unless you simply enjoy an argument every now and then.

Chop

 

[wirelessenabled]

Thanks for the heads up! Mine's clean.

 

[LiQiCE]

Bob61 / Manly,

I am not going to judge whether the comment made by the MBNA CSR was real or not. I have no reason to believe a fellow AnandTech member would lie to us about something as serious as this either. The point is that this is serious business. And whether or not 1 AnandTech member or 100 AnandTech members get effected, it still is important to make people aware about the possibility of such a situation arising. While you should always keep an eye on your credit card statements, in this situation, you would want to keep an even closer eye on your statements. Since MBNA is the largest credit card issuer around, there's a distinct possibility that if 100 cards got stolen and all of them have fraudulent charges on them only 1 AnandTech member got effected because there's so many MBNA cards out there. But just because only 1 person got effected so far doesn't make it any less important since there's the possibility of more than 1 person being effected. Since I'm assuming the AMEX situations were both isolated incidents (and they may not be, but lets assume so) then it doesnt necessarily warrant a huge mass warning. It does carry importance and spreading the word about it is just as important as this MBNA situation, but since this is purported to effect more than one person I guess it merits a bump to the top. In any case this arguement is a little pointless, if it bothers you so much that this thread is perma-bumped then perhaps post it up in the Forum Issues forum, because the mods / admins are the only ones who can remove it.

 

[sleepyE]

come to think of it, I have received one of those skechy phone calls before. I don't remember the details but the man who called was very pushy with trying to "verify" my s.s.#. I wouldn't give it to him and asked for him to tell me the # and I would tell him if he's right. The conversion ended when he told me some random #s and I had told him he's got the wrong #. weird... so many scams around these days....

 

[manly]

Sorry my comments were interpreted as hostile. As far as I'm concerned, we're all sharing opinions. The term "thread crapping" is bandied about as if it's some heinous crime. In reality, it only really applies to the For Sale/Trade forum.

I didn't mean to imply anyone was lying. I did state I don't believe that any major bank, as a matter of business policy, would allow their CSRs to publicly admit that any number of credit cards was systematically stolen. I did say that it's definitely possible for any one CSR to mistakenly share internal information.

Bob61's post seems to imply a possibly "conspiracy theory", but mines was simply to share my opinion of credit card companies and also an element of credit card fraud in practice.

I personally could care less that this one post is pinned to the top of the forum. Any good information shared is certainly appreciated.

 

[Foxymophandle]

*sniffsniff* I've worked for MBNA for going on 3 years now, and have always wondered how the rest of the world viewed the company. Glad to hear that the majority of the Anandtech-ers have had a good relationship. Brings a tear to my eye to read all these good remarks.

fmh

 

[aja]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm clean, but will keep an eye out. :disgust:

 

[ghankerson]

Just check mine and it is clean also. Thanks for the info though.

 

[Colie]

I too had a charge on my MBNA card from Global Telecon, Moscow Russia for $15.43. The charge was converted from Russian rubles. This chrge was on my December 2000 billing. I protested the charge and it was taken off without problem. It is a little troubling that MBNA would not be checking charges from this company a year later.

 

[wolfcry1]

I've owned a MBNA card for a number of years now. And in November they notified me of some strange card activity. I hadn't used the card in almost a year so I new it wasn't me. I live in MA but it turned out to be someone in CA charging the account. (I've never even been to CA) They took care of the charges, closed the account, and issued me a new card, which I also have not used. And now I'm getting credits to the NEW card unrelated to the previous unauthorized charges!. I like and have trusted MBNA but now I think it's time to cancel...

 

[Tarobap]

I had three Prodigy accounts on my MBNA Mastercard!!! They started coming up in November and I noticed it, and disputed the charge. Then another one came up last week, and so I called prodigy and they removed all THREE accounts and credited two months of Prodigy service back to my card.

One account was in CT, another in UT, and a third in IL . . . WTF!!! So I canceled the card and they are issuing me a new one.

As to the question to whether this thread belongs at the top or not, IT MOST CERTAINLY DOES. If it bothers you that much, quit visiting the forums--ie--revoke your membership. I don't understand how it is even a question and how one post locked at the top can bother somebody to point of making an issue out of it. Go see a psychiatrist. :| :disgust:

Nice post ChopOMatic