Are you a victim of a credit card scam?Matt Cardy/Getty Images
- Credit card fraud is on the rise — and so are the different types of credit card scams.
- Credit card scammers are getting smarter — they use all sorts of tricks, from phony phone calls and emails to credit card skimmers and Wi-Fi hotspots— to obtain your personal information.
- You could be a victim of a credit card scam and not even know it.
- If you find a fraudulent charge on your credit card, the first thing you should do is contact your credit card company immediately.
Credit card criminals are getting smarter, and you could be at risk.
Last year, CreditCards.com found that credit card fraud was on the rise. But it’s not just the number of fraud cases occurring — the types of credit card scams are increasingly varied.
Traditionally, criminals steal credit cards or use a lost or stolen one. Now, thieves can sell authentication information like ZIP codes along with stolen card numbers on the web, according to CreditCards.com. And they’re becoming more clever about how they obtain that information.
“[There is] the constant stream of phishing attacks we receive where someone is trying to lure us into providing passwords so they can steal funds or commit identity theft,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at BankRate, the parent company of CreditCards.com, told Business Insider.
“This includes the seemingly endless number of robocalls that we get over cell phones, fraudulently urging us to call to lower our credit card rate or answer in response to a problem with the IRS that doesn’t actually exist,” he said.
Other credit card scam calls, according to CreditCards.com, can involve scammers notifying you of “suspicious charges” on your account or acting as your utility company, pretending that you’re behind on your bills. You should also be wary when you’re on vacation — scammers can call your hotel phone pretending that there was a problem with the hotel’s computer system, asking you to provide your credit card information again.
But scams aren’t just restricted to phone calls. With the rise of EMV chip-enabled credit cards, scammers are now sending emails asking you to update your information before receiving your EMV Card.
Providing your credit card details in any of these scenarios is all a scammer needs to commit credit card fraud. But they can also carry out scams without any effort on your part, unbeknownst to you.
Wi-Fi hot spots are common these days, but beware: scammers can create a free Wi-Fi hot spot without a password — if you connect to one and access your credit card online, they can steal your login details and possibly your credit card information if you make a purchase. They can also counterfeit credit cards by obtaining your credit card information with a skimmer, which often go undetected by consumers.
Once they have your personal info, fraudsters can do everything from calling your credit card company or bank posing as you and claiming the card was lost or stolen to filling out fraudulent credit card applications (a form of identity theft) and making purchases.
There’s also been a rise in card-not-present fraud, according to CreditCards.com. This is when fraudsters make purchases with your name and card number, but not your actual card — think online orders. When you have your credit card in your possession, you can be completely unaware of this.
Here’s what to do if you unknowingly find yourself to be a victim of a credit card scam.
