# Beware of this scam - credit card charge against : H/EXTRAS/BCP 08713602566 GB



## woodworm (Jul 27, 2008)

Hi all…
Just to share with you,. I 'was charged for the sum of GBP11.00 on my credit card twice on Oct 02 and Oct 06 for service /goods I did not receive/purchase. I know that this is fictitious charge - the work of the crooks.
So I lodged a complaint and instructed the bank to block my CC imediately.

I just wonder how they got hold of my CreditCard details. Come share your knowledge with us.

Thank you for reading this post.


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## woodworm (Jul 27, 2008)

It seems not an isolated case. I surfing around and foud this site where a few of them lodged complaints of false charge by H/Extras/Bcp 08713602566GB
http://www.phonespamfilter.co.uk/search.php/08713602566


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## jackass (Mar 26, 2008)

Hi Woodworm,
There must be a Lumberjock out there that has the ability to give us advice as to how to proceed to avoid further problems. I personally don't do any transactions that ask for my credit card numbers on line. I will give them over the phone, only to well established businesses. I have friends that do on line banking. I refuse, I had a scam recently that was so authentic, I almost broke my own rules. I called the company, and was told it must have been a scam that wanted my passwords and home statistics. I was just lucky.
Jack


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## chriswright (Nov 13, 2008)

Thanks for the heads up. I hope you were able to get your money back.


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## woodworm (Jul 27, 2008)

No problem Chris. 
I talked to the officer in charge, and was informed that they would investigate the matter further and will duly reverse the charges. In the meantime, I got to cancell a couple of my on-line orders because I cannot use the card until I get the new one which will be ready in 4 working days time.

Thanks, Chris.


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

Whenever you use a credit card there is a chance your information will be stolen. It makes no difference whether you use it in person only, or on the internet…. it can still be stolen.

The best protection, in my opinion, is to make sure you register to be able to access your account information online, and check your activity frequently. I look at my cards daily just to make sure there are no unauthorized charges posted.

Lastly, keep in mind that in the U.S. you are only liable for a maximum $50 of unauthorized charges. Usually you don't even have to pay that.


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## RetiredCoastie (Sep 7, 2009)

My wife and I have a credit card with a $500.00 limit that we use strictly for on line purchases. If some one does steal the number they will only be able to charge to that limit. Unfortunately all of your personnel info, including credit and debit card numbers are all on line in some form because all stores and banks do most transactions over the Internet. Another form of protection is to only use credit and debit cards that have fraud insurance.


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## DachsieSlave (Aug 14, 2009)

I am not sure how every one feels about PayPal, but they have been around for quite some time and I have used them for about 4 years now with no problem for online transactions. How it works is that you give them your bank information, and install the PayPal plugin. Then when ever you make an online transaction you use the plugin to pay. It creates a one time credit card number for that transaction only. Paypal pays the charge and then debits you bank account. I have not had nor heard of any problems from using this.


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## Alonso83 (Jul 14, 2009)

I recently got hacked somehow and got around 9 non-authorized charges on my bank account (BOA) all of them from a site domain localized in Australia…. its really strange because I've been doing online banking and purchasing for a very long time and this is the first time I've been on this kind of situation.

The total amount for the charges was around $350 (more or less) I called my bank right away and got my debit card cancelled, they gave me a full refund right away, I had to return an a letter where I stated I was not responsible for the charges etc.

Until now I have no idea how this could happened, I've been using PayPal for most of my online purchases without an issue but I have a feeling that this was the way they got me. A couple of days after I found those charges on my account I received an e-mail from PayPal which was asking me to "click here" to access my account, this is the text of the email…

"Hello Alonso,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal
system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.

*they never contact me before as stated on the last paragraph*

We requested information from you for the following reason:

A recent review of your account determined that we require some additional
information from you in order to provide you with secure service.

Case ID Number: PP-*-*-***

This is a second reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible. Once you log
in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account access.

Be sure to log in securely by using the following link:
Click here to login and restore your account access

Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your
account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to ensure account
safety.

In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain
limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your
account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further
limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your
PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this.

To review your account and some or all of the information that PayPal used to
make its decision to limit your account access, please visit the Resolution
Center. If, after reviewing your account information, you seek further
clarification regarding your account access, please contact PayPal by visiting
the Help Center and clicking "Contact Us".

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that
this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We
apologize for any inconvenience.

Thanks,

PayPal Account Review Department

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you
will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account
and click the Help link in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

Which is really weird is that at the time I received this email I was at work, and the IT guy has a very strong firewall and virus protection on all the company pc's, I thought it was a legit email so I "clicked" on that link and I got a blocked screen for trying to access hacking and spamming website…......

To make the long story shorter, I think they tried to access my PayPal thru that email, since after I got that email I got into my PayPal's account and there are nothing wrong with it, and no limitations either.

So people, be really careful and I hope my experience can help someone else.


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## Rick Dennington (Aug 27, 2009)

I recently took out credit card protection on all my c.c. If anything happens like a scammer getting your info and charges stuff, you call them and they immediatly stop payments on unaurthorized purchases. They also cancil the card.
As far as PayPal: I've used them several times, especially on eBay, to make purchases. Never had a problem.
It seems a lot of businesses are going with PayPal these days. It looks like the future is buying this way.


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

Alonso, I had an email just like that a while back and it turned out to be legit.

What happened is that a seller owed me a refund of a couple dollars on some shipping charges that turned out to be less than expected, and he posted it to my account as a payment rather than a refund. Since I was not set up with PayPal to receive payments on that account, the transaction was flagged. I had a heck of a time sorting it out, because PayPal must have people try to circumvent paying their collection fees by doing things like this.

So don't be sure your PayPal account is okay until you have actually used it.


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## DachsieSlave (Aug 14, 2009)

Alonso,

It is a good thing that your work blocked that link. That was a phising email. If you had gotten to that link it would have looked like PayPal but would not have been. Then when you entered your userid and password you would have given it to them, and they could now access your account. No legitimate company sends emails like that. But if you recieve an email and think it might be ligit. Close your email and go to the site yourself as you normally do. This way you insure you go to the right place and using their contact procedure ask them about the email.

Edit: Charlie,I just saw your post, did your PayPal email have link to click? All of my correspondence from them they ask me to visit 
my account, they dont provide a link for the reasons I listed above.


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## tooldad (Mar 24, 2008)

On the subject of paypal. Always type in www.paypal.com NEVER GO THROUGH A LINK unless it is ebay. It even says that on their fraud protection. I have had emails wanting me to verify, almost fell for it once.

Paypal states that if they need a password for a credit card or bank account, they will tell you the last 4 numbers to show you they have it and are only verifying for payment purposes. If you are asked for a password and it doesn't give you the last 4 numbers, it is a scam.

Also as I stated, do not go through a link, that is also from paypal.


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Good reason to not use debit cards! No limit to your exposure on them. With CC you are limited to $50 fraud liability by law)

Recently I have had a bunch of emails telling me several of my accounts have been locked for security reasons. They provide a link for me to input personal info to unlock them. They look very real, but on close examination of the site address I always spot an error for the official ban site. I quit forwarding them to the banks since they have quit responding teling me they are fraudlent.

Unfortunately, the banks do not prosecut the scammers because it is too expensive. It is cheaper to take an occassional hit, just part of the cost of doing business. Since no one is really trying to stop them, we are on our own to be vigilent.

A few years ago a CC company called and asked my wife if she had been to Alaska and Canada over the weekend and spent $13,000? We had been home al weekend. We have no idea how the card number got out, but some merchants took a big hit!!


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## Alonso83 (Jul 14, 2009)

*CharlieM1958*

I'm pretty sure that this email was not legit, just by the reason that DachsieSlave stated, if it was a legit email they will had asked me to go to the paypal's site and login, instead of follow the link.

Unfortunatelly I dind't notice that until after I got the blocked page from my work pc.

and yes I used my paypal after the incident and everthing is right, nothing seems to be limited.

I'm just being more careful after that, since that I had change all my passwords to a 10 to 12 digits, (leters, numbers and symbols) just for the peace of mind, (I don't know how much peace you can have with that, but at least it won't be so easy [hopefuly] for them to do it again) lol.


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## woodworm (Jul 27, 2008)

I read every reply to this topic here with interest. Thanks to everyone.

As far as I know, our Credit Card info is being transmited through SSL protocol and the detail is being encrypted when we submit the purchase/order confirmation on-line. So I supposed, there is no way that they are collectible by parties other than the vendor/merchant we are dealing with.

Knowing that, I come up with this guessing thought. The culprit is already in our computer (PC). How does it happen? Possibly, when we resgiter with any website - like free holiday forum, game club etc just as examples, we provide our e-mail address. Usually when we want to activate or confirm as a user/member we are asked to login through a link sent by e-mail. This is the time they can plant a spy in our computer.

I'm not a computer man. I do not know how it works. So this is just my wild thought. Can any of LJs with computer background debate it agaist? I'm happy to read and to know.

Thanks everyone.


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## DaveHerron (Jan 21, 2008)

I know it is convenient to use debit cards, but be careful where you use them. I really do not recommend you use them for on line purchases. Unlike most credit cards that do not charge you for unauthorized transactions if you swear our an affidavit of fraud, when unauthorized charges show up on a debit card account you are out the money until the bank or you are successful in recovering the money. It happened to me once and I was out over $1000 for 2 months until the bank finally was able to recover the money.


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