Check Your Credit Card Bills!!!

Canada
January 17, 2010 9:54pm CST
Please, review your credit card statements very closely. I recently had a small charge ($80) appear on my card. Had I not looked at each transaction very closely, I would have never noticed that someone got ahold of my credit card information and used it. Usually I don't check my credit card bill to thoroughly. I often have a look at them online a few times a month so that I'm not too surprised when the bill comes in, but I just look at the total amount owing, not the details of the transactions. But since resolving to take control of my finances this year, I started checking my credit card bills very closely. And low and behold I found a charge that I didn't make for $80! After a few phone calls to my credit card company, and then to the company that charged me, it turns out that it is for a long distance call that was made from Brazil to the US, using my credit card. I live in Canada and have never been to Brazil. Someone got ahold of my credit card number, expiry date, and the 3-digit code on the back of my card. I canceled my card and the charge has been reversed. This experience got me thinking, how many other charges have ever appeared on my card that I didn't make. I must be an idiot for not checking more closely before.
2 responses
@maezee (41988)
• United States
18 Jan 10
Wow! This has definitely never happened to me and hopefully it won't. I hope you got the whole situation taken care of! I owe about $800 on credit cards all together..And so a charge of $80 is definitely NOT something I would easily miss, as I don't use my credit cards anymore, I just pay them down. I would definitely notice if my credit spiked up that much! But it's a good thing you noticed. Hopefully there haven't been any other charges that didn't belong to you on previous statements.
@Rainegurl (2156)
• Philippines
18 Jan 10
Very true, GoGirl. I do check my credit card statement each month. In fact, I keep my charge slips and list them down. I also make sure that there are no double entries. It's good that you were able to catch that $80 charge to you. That is a big amount, Gogirl.