I'm a Porn site operator now!
Routinely checking my credit card account I found a deduction in Thai Bath. I've not been in Thailand for a year. So I traced the merchant who turns out to be a Thai online payment service (similar to PayPal in the US). Someone had used my Credit Card to buy web hosting (you can guess for what purpose). I immediately called my credit card company to terminate the card only to learn, that the fraudsters have maxed out my credit line within 3 days.
Since they haven't got the merchant details for the other transactions I can't file the dispute, effectively cutting me off of credit card use for one to two weeks. What amused me: the dispute can't be filed online (there I only can view my statement), but needs a fax form to be processed. Seems there is some eBusiness opportunity.
The Thai payment operator was more swift. Within 5 hours (on a Sunday!) they cancelled the transaction and issued a refund (that will take a day to arrive through Visa).
I'm quite restrictive using my credit card online, however I travel a bit in the region where I use it in hotels. I would like to know if I became victim of a local fraud or one of the beneficiaries of the recent US data losses.
Definitely I'm p***d.
Since they haven't got the merchant details for the other transactions I can't file the dispute, effectively cutting me off of credit card use for one to two weeks. What amused me: the dispute can't be filed online (there I only can view my statement), but needs a fax form to be processed. Seems there is some eBusiness opportunity.
The Thai payment operator was more swift. Within 5 hours (on a Sunday!) they cancelled the transaction and issued a refund (that will take a day to arrive through Visa).
I'm quite restrictive using my credit card online, however I travel a bit in the region where I use it in hotels. I would like to know if I became victim of a local fraud or one of the beneficiaries of the recent US data losses.
Definitely I'm p***d.
Posted by Stephan H Wissel on 02 July 2005 | Comments (4) | categories: Business