Card Tricks

Every now and then a blog topic appears out of nowhere, looks you in the face, and says BOO!  Our credit union called on Sunday to alert us to possible fraud on one of our cards. They took us through the process of verifying a few suspicious transactions. Then they put the account on hold and began the process of issuing new cards. It was the usual over-the-phone slog.  Provide member number here, confirm home address there, several requests of “Can you please hold for a minute?”, and so on.  But “so on” went from minutes to tens of minutes.  Suddenly it occurred to us: the credit card fraud was happening right in front of us.

If you’ve ever been a victim of fraud in any of its forms, it’s one of the most unsettling feelings I can ever describe.  These cyber-thieves might as well just walk through your front door and help themselves to whatever they want.  The fact that your phone sits on the counter patiently awaiting calls suggests you are open to the opportunity on any day, at any time.  In this case I’m convinced the hack was deliberately timed.  We were preparing dinner for visiting family on a weekend night.  My wife and I were dashing about the kitchen with last-minute preparations  The last thing we had time for was a phone call.

Trust can be established in the blink of an eye.  The Caller ID on my wife’s phone showed the correct number and word-for-word name of our credit union.  The caller identified himself in a business-like voice as an agent from the union’s fraud department.  And shortly after calling, he sent us the typical text messages we’ve come to expect in these situations, showing our credit union’s logo and other validating information.  In those first few moments of interaction, when your mind is focused on dinner and fraudulent charges, it just doesn’t occur to you to question the caller himself.

Of course, we committed a cardinal sin of fraud by simply answering the phone.  Our credit union never has a live agent call us when they suspect fraud.  Instead they leave a recorded message asking us to call back to verify the charges.  When we call back we answer a few questions through an automated system, and the credit union takes it from there.  Zero interaction with a real person from start to finish.

If there’s any good news in this experience, it’s that our Sunday evening caller didn’t succeed despite his determined efforts.  After cutting short the call we promptly contacted our credit union and learned that yes, in fact, fraudulent charges had just been attempted on our card… and were declined.  Whatever security bells and whistles were put in place to detect and deny this kind of activity worked exactly as they were meant to.  But the fact remains, we pretty much opened the front door, greeted the scammer, and said, “Hey, come on in!”

The counter tactics for this sort of plunder are plentiful, of course.  Some credit cards no longer use a static 16-digit number or security code.  Most allow two layers of authentication before access. Others churn out text messages or emails when charges are considered suspicious.  Then again, you can simply do what my mother-in-law does and pay for everything in cash.  Not a bad idea to be honest, as long as cash remains an acceptable form of payment.

It’s disheartening to live in a world where others are desperate (or evil) enough to develop sophisticated, practiced methods to steal by simply getting you to pick up the phone.  In truth, this bandit has done me a favor.  He’s heightened my awareness to such card tricks by his single invitation to sit down at the table and play.  The next time this happens (and there will be a next time) I’ll be watching the cards very carefully.  And you can bet I’ll be watching the magician himself even more so. 

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

23 thoughts on “Card Tricks”

  1. Good Morning Dave,

    I so enjoyed this post. I occasionally have clients with damaged Credit Reports/scores who have been swindled with Identity theft and Credit card fraud. It’s a challenge to correct/repair the mistake of opening that front door.

    A Monty Python “And now for something completely different” segue… A belated Happy Birthday wish for 65… Stay the course. Sláinte and Godspeed!

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  3. Seems strange to think of a cashless society, yet that seems to be where it is going!

    My husband always carries a $10 bill in the car for those days when the local coffee/doughnut shop has a power outage and can not scan a card. In the old days, of course, they could make an imprint of the card on a paper form but I doubt that system is used any more.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. My wife still carries cash in her purse and I keep a $20 in my wallet. There are more and more situations where cash is no longer an option (ex. flights) but you still have to be prepared for when cash is the only option!

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  4. Wow that sounds scary. But can the regular method of calling back to verify the charges be trusted now either? When scammers are so sophisticated. I only once had a live agent call from my credit card company, decades ago before all the scams, to verify a purchase that was larger than normal, (for furniture), but now I wouldn’t even speak to someone. I seldom use my credit card anyway, at least with debit card transactions they are limited by what they can withdrawal.

    Falling prey to a scam can happen to anyone – a very intelligent friend of mine fell for an online bank fraud where she clicked on a link in an email and then the bank said she had agreed to the transaction, although they did eventually cover the loss, as it was for a smaller amount. Unbelievably after the event was over, she sent the scammer a scathing email about why didn’t he get a read job instead of scamming old ladies out of money, and incredibly he argued back with her!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I agree; no method of communication is foolproof when it comes to cyber-crimes. Computers are even more vulnerable than the telephone if the proper precautions aren’t taken. You just have to assume attempts at fraud will happen and do your best to defend against them. I empathize with your friend and her reaction, Joni. It’s exactly how I felt after this incident. I wanted to call the guy back and say, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself and what you are doing?” 🙂

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  5. It’s horrible when that happens. I’ve had a few calls that don’t sound right so I’ve taken to not answering the phone and just letting go to voicemail. Interestingly, my wife and I were recently booking a trip to England and I started to get texts from my bank saying, “Did you authorize this?” about a couple of hotel bookings we were putting on our credit card. I answered with a simple, “Yes” and then looked on-line for the bank’s fraud department’s number. Sure enough it’s a new procedure for them and they said in the future that I should log into my banking app or website because they’ll have an alert there along with the text message they sent.

    A few days later I got a random text saying, “Did you authorize this? If so, please call 800-scammer so we can verify your account details.” In fact I hadn’t used my card at that moment and I checked my account on-line and nothing was noted there. I didn’t call the scammer dudes.

    It’s just a sad world when we have to watch our backs so closely on this stuff.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Text messages are more suspect to me. I think the banks and other financial companies I work with have effectively convinced me they’ll never communicate that way. But this is the first time I’ve seen the Caller ID (both the phone number and the words) hijacked to make me believe the call was coming from my credit union. It’s probably easier to pull off that ruse than I ever realized.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I worked on the early VoIP telephone systems back in the day and one of the things that never got fixed was the ease with which you can spoof a callerID. It’s surprisingly easy to create a fake caller ID. The phone companies just never wanted to spend the money to lock it down (we’re talking rebuilding VoIP to use something other than IP).

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      2. I figured the spoofing was easy to do, but never knew it was only a matter of money why phone companies wouldn’t develop protection against it. So the consumer takes the hit instead, sigh…

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  6. That sure is scary Dave. Scammers are so high tech these days, that it would be easy to fall prey to their scams, especially if you were distracted just as you were that evening. I have caller ID on my landline and twice last week I had a call come in with this number: (999) 999-9999. Needless to say I didn’t answer. I hate that scammers’ calls come in as a legitimate business or even a local phone prefix number, i.e. spoofing, but I still don’t pick up. I don’t have voicemail on my landline. I wonder sometimes why I even keep the landline as most calls are not legitimate anymore.

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    1. As I told Andrew, this is the first time I’ve seen the Caller ID (both the phone number and the words) hijacked to make me believe the call was coming from my credit union. It makes me lose even more faith in credit cards. I mean, any restaurant server can take your card into the back to process it, and take a quick photo of the numbers while they’re at it, right? 😦

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      1. The phone scammers are getting way too smart Dave. When I got my Visa credit card, it was probably the early 80s, back when you got a yellow carbon copy receipt for the credit card transaction. I always put the receipt right into my wallet, never left it in the bag. But as careful as I was, someone got the credit card info and made a large purchase on the Home Shopping Network. It was traced by the bank and I had no issues at all as I never carried a balance and had never ordered anything by telephone. I was told it was someone in California, but due to FOIA, they could not divulge any more info. It had to have been a store employee – who else?

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  7. It is terrible what these scammers are doing! Glad your credit union blocked him. I never answer my phone, but it’s pretty wild how they can spoof to look like someone. My credit card got stolen the day before I was induced with Violet. Not the best time ha!

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    1. I like the idea of no physical cards (ex. Apple Wallet), but that wouldn’t have changed anything about this angle on scamming. I’m starting to hope there’s another, more secure approach to transactions on the horizon, to replace credit cards altogether!

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  8. My daughter found out someone had tried to take out a loan in her name. So, now she is going through all the nonsense, stomach aches, etc. I think she had seen something suspicious on her Credit report. Sad indeed that we don’t know what is real or not. Sorry you went through that.

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  9. I once got a notification about a new bank account that I had supposedly opened. I got that straightened out before bad stuff happened, and have kept a freeze on my 3 credit reports.

    But it will all be better with AI, right?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Is it just me or does it feel like AI is on the doorstep of every login/password screen, patiently fiddling with the lock until it finds a way in?

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