If you paid a romance scammer with a gift card , contact the company that issued the card right away. Tell them you paid a scammer with the gift card and ask if they can refund your money. Notify the website or app where you met the scammer, too.

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June Related Items. Has an online love interest asked you for money? According to CreditCards. com, data breaches totaled 1, worldwide in — up 46 percent from the year before — and led to the compromise of more than one billion data records.

Twelve percent of breaches occurred in the financial services sector; 11 percent happened in the retail sector. Malicious outsiders were the culprits in 55 percent of data breaches, while malicious insiders accounted for 15 percent. But credit card fraud is not just one single action. In fact, there are many different forms out there. Application fraud generally happens in conjunction with identity theft. It happens when other people apply for credit or a new credit card in your name.

They will usually first steal supporting documents, which are then used to substantiate their fraudulent application. Banks have various safeguarding measures in place to stop this type of fraud from happening. The most important one is requiring original documentation only. Additionally, they will often telephone employers to confirm identity. Unfortunately, criminals will frequently forge documents and provide false telephone numbers for places of employment.

Unfortunately, there are always ways around certain safeguarding measures. A second form of credit card fraud is experienced through credit card imprints This means that somebody skims information that is placed on the magnetic strip of the card. This is then used to encode a fake card or to complete fraudulent transactions. If somebody knows the expiry date and account number of your card, they can commit CNP fraud against you.

This can be done through phone, mail or internet. It essentially means that somebody uses your card without actually being in physical possession of it.

More and more and often, merchants will require the card verification code, making CNP fraud slightly more difficult, but if a fraudster can get your account number, they probably know that number too.

Additionally, there are only possible combinations for the verification code. As such, many criminals attempt to order items of very low amounts until they figure out the right number. Be on the lookout, therefore, for small payments on your statements. Counterfeit card fraud is usually committed through skimming. This means that a fake magnetic swipe card holds all your card details. This fake strip is then used to create a fraudulent card that is fully functional. Essentially, it is an exact copy, which means fraudsters can simply swipe it in a machine to pay for certain goods.

This type of fraud can also be committed by someone who knows your card details. However, it is often easy enough to convince a merchant that there is something wrong with the card, at which point they will enter the transaction by hand. The next possible type is lost and stolen card fraud. Here, your card will be taken from your possession, either through theft or because you lost it.

The criminals who get their hands on it will then use it to make payments. It is difficult to do this through machines, as they will require a pin number. However, it is easy enough to use a found or stolen card to make online purchases. It is for this reason that it is vital that you cancel your cards as soon as you realize they are missing.

Card ID theft happens when the details of your card become known to a criminal, and this information is then used to take over a card account or open a new one. Your name will be used for this. This is one of the most difficult types of fraud to identify and to recover from, because it can take a long time before you even know that it has happened.

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money. The tactics used to fight credit card scams are getting more sophisticated all the time.

Unfortunately, so are the tactics used by credit card scammers. More than 2. And those were just the cases that were reported to law enforcement and consumer protection agencies. Knowing how the most common scams work and how to avoid falling for them can keep your money and your identity safe.

The charity scam. The hotspot scam. The credit card 'sign-up farm' scam. The interest rate scam. The overcharge scam. The skim scam. This credit card scam is a particularly cruel violation of people's good-hearted instincts to help.

Right after a tragedy like a hurricane, flood or wildfire, scammers get to work, calling or emailing and appealing to people to help victims with a donation.

When a "charity worker" calls with a detailed, sad story and asks for help, it can be hard to say no. The pleas for funds are often presented as urgent, too, to get people to cough up their credit card numbers quickly.

If someone calls you seeking a donation, don't give your credit card information, even if it seems legitimate. Write down any information they give you, then politely hang up. Search the web for the phone number and put quotation marks around the number in your search.

If the charity is legitimate and you want to help, donate directly through its website. It's common advice to be careful when using a public Wi-Fi network , since crooks could be monitoring these networks. But sometimes the network itself is a trap, carefully laid by credit card scammers who are waiting to pounce on your information.

In this credit card scam, your smartphone or laptop finds a "public Wi-Fi hotspot," and when you connect to it, you're prompted for credit card information to pay for internet access. In other cases, the hotspot is free and does offer internet access, but the scammers watch your every move. They record passwords you enter, peek into your bank account when you check it and capture your data in other ways. If you need to access public Wi-Fi at a restaurant or store, ask an employee for the correct network name and password information.

Be wary of generic-sounding names like "Free Public Wi-Fi. Another way to protect yourself is to use a VPN or virtual private network. This creates a secure connection you can use even on unsecured public networks. Victims of this credit card scam are often willing participants, duped by the promise of easy money for helping generate what they're told are legitimate credit card rewards.

In reality, it's a scam to rip off card issuers, often on a massive scale. People running these scams recruit people with good credit and offer to pay them for the use of their Social Security numbers to open credit card accounts.

The scammers rack up huge balances on the cards to generate rewards points, convert the points to cash, then cancel the purchases. In some cases, they don't even bother canceling, and the victim is left on the hook.

And they're usually told that the spending on the cards will be legitimate, even though the whole point is to defraud the issuer. Victims can wind up responsible for huge balances, see their credit trashed and have their own credit card and airline rewards accounts frozen.

The lure of easy money can be hard for anyone to resist, and even more so for those who are struggling financially. But it's wise to assume that easy money doesn't exist. The simplest way to avoid falling victim to credit card farming scams is to never give or sell your Social Security number or any personally identifiable information to someone else.

To make sure no one is using your identity to open accounts without your knowledge, check your credit report for free for any irregularities. Millions of people are familiar with this classic robocall scam. The message claims to have inside connections to credit card companies and can work on your behalf to reduce your payments by thousands of dollars.

There are no such connections — the whole thing is a setup to get you to reveal your credit card information. The "helpful" representative will quickly ask you sensitive questions to harvest your personal data and credit card information.

In a slightly more legitimate — but still costly — variation of this scheme, the caller contacts the credit card company and successfully lowers your rate, and you get charged hundreds or thousands of dollars for the service.

The problem is that they aren't doing anything you couldn't have done yourself for free. You have just as much clout with the credit card company as a third party when it comes to lowering your interest rate. Your issuer may give you the option to transfer your balance to a different card that offers a lower APR. If you want to lower your credit card interest rate , reach out to the issuer directly. It won't hurt you to ask, even if they say no. If you do get a robocall promising to cut your rates — or any other offer that sounds too good to be true — just hang up.

Never give out or confirm sensitive information to someone who calls out of the blue. To reduce sales calls , put your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry, then keep in mind that legitimate businesses adhere to the registry while scammers don't.

This credit card scam is gaining ground as fewer transactions are handled in cash and more shopping moves online. It goes like this: You get a call or a text telling you that your credit card was overcharged on a recent purchase. How helpful! The scammer will ask a bunch of questions intended to get at your personal information.

According to the Better Business Bureau, this scam is especially convincing because the scammers will often address the target by name. And with more and more small, everyday purchases being put on credit cards, the vague "recent purchase" angle becomes more convincing. Hang up. Check your credit card statement. If something there seems out of whack, contact your credit card issuer yourself by calling the number on the back of your card. Credit card return protection: Where you're covered.

It was hoped that the widespread adoption of EMV chip technology would wipe out skimming, but it has proved persistent. A skimmer is a small electronic device installed by crooks on card readers on gas pumps, ATMs and elsewhere. The skimmer reads the information from the magnetic stripe on your credit or debit card when you swipe or insert the card.

They can be hard to detect, and some of the newer ones are all but impossible to see with the naked eye. Skimmers are especially prevalent in tourist-heavy areas during high season. Though skimmers are often well-concealed, sometimes you can tell that something looks off. Look for signs of tampering on ATM or gas station card readers, including devices attached on top of or beside the card slot.

Move toward using a mobile wallet and contactless payments to avoid using your physical card. Check your account balances and transactions often. If you see something amiss, notify your credit card issuer right away to report the fraud. Best credit cards for online shopping. Credit cards you can use instantly after approval. Credit card vs.

debit: Which is safer online? Here are six common credit card scams to watch out for. How to avoid the charity scam.

How to avoid the hotspot scam. How to avoid the sign-up farm scam. Call the customer service phone number on the back of your credit card and ask for a reduced rate. How to avoid the interest rate scam. How to avoid the overcharge scam. How to avoid the skim scam. What's next? On a similar note Dive even deeper in Credit Cards. Explore Credit Cards. Get more smart money moves — straight to your inbox.

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Account takeover is actually one of the most common forms of credit card fraud. I believed he was an american living in England. Check your credit card statement. But credit card fraud is not just one single action. The charity scam. You have just as much clout with the credit card company as a third party when it comes to lowering your interest rate. On a similar note

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