Check your credit card statement carefully

[aquaman]

My wife and her friend visited the Island late June and 1st week of July. While there, they used their Visa Card at The Pirates Nest, at Divi Phoenix Sunset Restaurant and at the perfume store in the main building in Oranjestad.

This past week the statement arrived with over $3000 of fraudulent charges! The charges were made after they left the island at the following locations, neither of which they visited. Seasons Fashion II and Busters Garage.....there were 5 charges for Busters.....

Again this shows that "Cash is King" or Travellers cheques may be the way to go

aquaman

[Andrea J.]

i am angry when i hear this kind of stuff about credit card fraud/thievery.
frustrated, angry but not surprised.
i suppose anyone with a knack for thievery and a half of a brain could pull it off.

alas, even in aruba.......sad indeed.

i am so glad that the charges happened AFTER your wife and friend left the island.
makes the dispute and resolution much easier.

a supervisor at amex told me that when we make a credit card purchase at a restaurant (no matter which country you are in)

• go to the credit card machine with the wait staff that is handling your bill. whith you in tow, no one will have the nerve to copy your credit card number and pertinent info.
• when the wait staff runs the charge, there will be 2 receipts that are expelled. one of them you sign and give back to the wait staff, the other is your receipt. make sure that the receipt that stays with the proprietor has the credt card numbers X'd out.

security /credit safety in this day is an oxymoron.

thanks for your posting aquaman. sorry for your troubles

andrea

Originally Posted by aquaman

My wife and her friend visited the Island late June and 1st week of July. While there, they used their Visa Card at The Pirates Nest, at Divi Phoenix Sunset Restaurant and at the perfume store in the main building in Oranjestad.

This past week the statement arrived with over $3000 of fraudulent charges! The charges were made after they left the island at the following locations, neither of which they visited. Seasons Fashion II and Busters Garage.....there were 5 charges for Busters.....

Again this shows that "Cash is King" or Travellers cheques may be the way to go

aquaman

[Bill]

Thats horrible!!!! Hope it gets resolved quickly. Keep us informed.

[rob o]

Originally Posted by Andrea J.

make sure that the receipt that stays with the proprietor has the credt card numbers X'd out.


thanks for your posting aquaman. sorry for your troubles

andrea

Andrea....have you ever done this? I wonder if the proprietor might want to run it again...then you get charged twice? Just wondering.

[danadog56]

that is just plain wrong !!!! It is a shame that when traveling anywhere you have to worry about even the places you eat or shop taking advantage...

[Andrea J.]

yup and there has never been an issue.
paul is the one that carries the bill to the maitre'd
and has not had an issue

andrea

Originally Posted by rob o

Andrea....have you ever done this? I wonder if the proprietor might want to run it again...then you get charged twice? Just wondering.

[Karen in NYC]

Sorry to hear that. We have to be so careful no matter where we go. I always notify the CC companies or bank and give start-end dates, and I take TWO CC....One to use...one stays in the safe. While I am on vacation I log on to my bank, and to my CC company periodically sometimes to check on things. Then when I come home I monitor CC/bank carefully for a few weeks.

Hopefully you will get this straightened out. Please let us know what happens.

[aquaman]

The Issuing bank for the Visa card has reversed all of the transactions. In discussion with their Fraud Prevention people we learned a lot. It appears the bank knows when this is happening due to the way the card is processed...often manually, unless the card has been cloned. They also asked about our use of debit cards as these are a much larger problem to resolve. I wish the banks had a brochure or other form of information so we could know about these things in advance.

This afternoon I spoke with a friend who was in Aruba in March and mentioned to him this situation. He told me that this also happened to him when he ws in Aruba. They hit his card for $17,000. Again the charges were after he returned home and the charges went through in the Dominican Republic. He has never been there. Hopefully the new cards with the microchip will reduce this problem.

Aquaman

[kent]

Sorry to hear about that. Someone stole my wifes cc and I never even shut it off because they were spending less on the card than my wife was. Ha!Ha! Thats a joke. Kent