I'd still like to know how they got my information, this card has only been used to make automatic payments for municipal charges, water, sewer, trash pick-up and automatic payment for telephone, internet charges .
my bet would be (in order)
Rogue employee at one of the organizations you have given number to
Dumb practices at organization (such as printing lests of credit cards to be billed, then after ticking them off, putting the paper with numbers and CCvs into the trash when it is found by someone with the knowledge to use it.
Bank hacked and lists of valid CC numbers obtained.
I had an interesting experience two years back. i had eaten lunch at a smart little street cafe in the town of Mooloolaba on the Sunshine coast. The food was great and the backpacker Irish waitress was both pretty and attentive.
I asked for my bill and she came to my table with the bill and a wireless EFTPOS terminal. I handed her my card ad she fumbled it and dropped it on the ground.
Apologizing profusely in an Irish lilt, she picked my card up and ostentatiously wiped it clean on the leg of her jeans - at about mid calf. I paid for my lunch and headed off.
When I was about 200 metres a man stepped from a nearby building, flashed his Queensland Police ID badge at me and asked me t0 step into his office (as it turned out, a vacant office they had taken over for surveillance.
The police inside explained to me that i had just been the victim of a card scamming ring. This is how it worked:-
The pretty little Irish lass had a card reader strapped to her ankle, when she dropped my card and "cleaned" it she was using the card scanner to obtain an electronic "print" of my card, which was wirelessly connected to another nearby machine used by her associates.
Then after "cleaning" my card, she processed the genuine transaction and (unseen by me) carefully noted my PIN number. She then returned the legitimate card machine to the counter and went to the toilet - where she used her mobile to TXT my pin to her associates.
Anyway, the police asked me to not do anything for a few days, even if I noticed a number of dodgy transactions, they were trying to find out how big the gang was and where its links elsewhere led. They gave me a letter promising to make good any loss I suffered and gave me a number to ring in my bank and a code word for verification.
I rang my bank, confirmed the whole thing was 1005 legitimated and watched fascinated as over the next 2 days nearly $10,000 in purchases were made around the world on my card.
On about day five a new card arrived from me, along with a letter from the bank detailing the charges that had been reversed and inviting me to highlight any they might have missed.
