Unauthorized Debit
Complaint
Cherry E Richardson
Country: United States
Called my bank when I noticed a debit I didn't recognize in the amount of $10.65. The bank gave me the telephone number of the company debiting my account, 623-742-3769, which belongs to MCA Web Technology in Phoenix, AZ. I checked them out on the Internet, and confirmed that I had never heard of them or anything about their business. The bank advised me to call them, which I did without success (got a voice mail referring me to support@mcawebtechnology.com to send an email communication). I also did this. Nothing. No response. On my lunch hour I'll fill out an unauthorized debit form at the bank. I have no clue how this place got my debit card number. I rarely use it.
Comments
Same scammers as described here:
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/EL6JDmbjXAAI8gjKEHLtfw
More details here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... DigitalAgePluto
You have to take off work early to go fill out tons of papers and they won't help in any way. The bank says lets close this one and open a new one. Then I have to wait two weeks for a new cards. What a PIA!!!!!
Both are reported on here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... DigitalAgePluto
$11 is a small amount, and apparently most banks seem to just write it off rather than take any action, or conduct any real investigation, but across thousands of accounts per month, under many front names, the total take can add up quickly.
Since you closed your accounts and reopened them, what charges were made to the new account before fraudulent charges again showed up?
Or is it a case of the fraudulent charges being run thru the old account, and being transferred by your bank to the new account?
Is this a CC account, or a checking account? If checking, was it thru a debit or check card?
Did you order anything from Equifax, or an Equifax related company prior to the fraudulent charges showing up?
My warning came when I tried to use my ATM card this morning- I got a message "unauthorized use of card- contact your financial center immediately" and it popped my card right back out at me. So, I checked my account online and discovered a charge for $11.89 from MCA templates on 1/18/08. It was before business hours, so I started reading and found out that I am just one of what seems like a billion poor saps getting duped.
I called my local bank branch as soon as they opened, and she had no idea what I was talking about- she kept telling me to come in and fill out the dispute papers to get my money back, but she saw no warnings on my account or anything.
I said there had to be a flag or something since it was the ATM machine that told me about the problem to begin with! She stammered about how the financial center doesn't always let them know about stuff like this, and I'm thinking what what WHAT? They don't let my bank know I have been duped? She agreed to call higher up and see what she could find out and I am waiting for her call back, then I will post what I find out. It would be great if banks are finally starting to catch on (belatedly) and has these sites as redflagged. But I seem to be the only person that this has happened to- at least I think???
I use the debit account for all kinds of things online- amazon, paypal, ebay included. I make payments with it at netflix, my TV dish, power bill, phone, you name it, so they could have gotten my number from anywhere. I have never used equifax.
here's the deal- I honestly didn't know that you weren't supposed to use a debit card online. I always thought of myself as savvy when it came to online purchases, looking for the little lock, never responding or even clicking on phishmail. I also figured that because there is never very much money in there, that no one would try to steal from me, LOL. Now, I find out too late, that I have been an idiot. This news needs to get out- like into the mainstream media, because I missed it entirely and I am online a lot. I know I was dumb, no one needs to remind me and make me feel worse.
So, suggestions for those of us who have poor credit and cannot get an actual credit card? Ironically, our credit was destroyed when someone stole my husband's birth certificate and created an ID for themselves, then went out and lived it up. Now this. sigh....
Hope people are still reading this thread and respond.
If your credit damage is due to fraudulent accounts due to id theft, then yo need to deal with that as well. File the police complaints, get copies of the police reports, send in the disputes to the credit reporting agencies, and don't take [***]. With the FACTA amendments to FCRA, the law has changed, and there are specific requirements on how both CRAs and data furnishers MUST respond to id theft disputes, and how fast they MUST respond.
Too many creditors are corrupt enough to handle id theft as just a bad debt they sell off and wash their hands of. Too many debt collectors will gladly take your money and damage your credit, even though the "debt" was due to id theft. Use the law, even get an attorney, and stop being dragged down. Make them bear the full costs of their sloppy identification procedures.
All their promises are only that, no better than their own integrity, and useless for stopping your checks from bouncing, screwing up your credit, or leaving you without cash when some thief steals YOUR money from YOUR account.
You might still get stuck with overdraft charges, even if your bank eventually restored the stolen funds. On small fraudulent amounts like these, they may even make money on fees to cover if they eat the charge themselves. They almost never really "investigate", which is why these "companies" keep stealing.
Since the banks are not looking after your interests, you have to.
Immediately called my card company and filed a fraudulent charge complaint. They cancelled the card and have issued a new one.
I had never heard of the company and a quick search led me here. I had no idea that I would find this much info about this company and the scam they are more than likely getting away with.
I sure would like to know how they got the card info in the first place.
Close your card and get a new one right away. If you don't, they will know it was successful and you could get more charges.
In fact you'll notice that they don't have an SSL Certificate(https) in place, because that would require business authenticity. You'll also know they're checkout is incomplete. When you do a reverse DNS lookup, the site is hosted in Australia. Along with about a hundred other phished domain names. It uses a private name server called aussiednsserver.com.
Deason Software
Brett Deason (sales@deasoft.com)
+61.610397957577
Fax: +61.610397957577
63 Timbertop Drive
Rowville, VICTORIA 3178
This is the ISP hosting service. Perhaps in cohorts with MCA Technologies. I haven't contacted the numbers.
People like this should be exploited and exposed.
My bank Chase is issuing the credit and charge back. It's too bad some of the other banks are being so difficult about this.
Good luck
MGD, who has posted at the site below, has noted that the webpages are all tagged to block searchbots from indexing them. The main purpose for having phony business websites, DBAs, and LLCs, may be to create enough appearance of "legitimacy" with banks and payment processors so that the various individuals who assist this scheme can set up the merchant accounts needed to submit credit card charges, and bank accounts to process and forward the charges thru.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... DigitalAgePluto
What ever happened to the FDIC?
You might have better luck getting another reporter interested. That might in turn get the authorities interested, so they don't look ineffective.
Earlier versions of the same scam were reported to use "pinging", and there are some recent reports of consumers finding pre-authorization activity when checking their accounts on-line in association with these fraudulent charges. These notations apparently disappear within 24 hours if an actual charge is not put thru, and don't show up on mailed statements. If you called your bank to check on a fraudulent charge, they may be able to see recent pre-authorizations for a short period of time.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... Pluto~start=160
The loss to the merchant (in this case a school with an old donation page), may be thousands of dollars, some of which may still slip thru as small missed fraudulent charges to consumer CC accounts. But the real loss is thru much larger fraudulent charges put thru on the card numbers that check out, lost either by that consumer or their bank.
In effect, ANY web accessible payment page can be a security leak to the whole electronic payment system, if that merchant is not paying attention. If there are enough such leaks, then even CC number data breaches may be unnecessary to allow generated numbers to be put thru the system. This is why it is important that the banks take even these small fraudulent charges seriously.
http://consumerist.com/358842/is-hsbc-straini ... -fraud-activity
"by Ausarb at 06:00 PM on 02/20/08
Fraud indeed sucks and I feel sorry for those people affected, but on a positive side, only big losses for banks and other financial institutions will make them change.
I recently had a credit card fraud problem myself, and I use Chase. The fraudster successfully made a $1 transaction at what I think is a subway fare vending machine in New York and then tried to make a $600 then another $400 purchase at a Home Depot in Brooklyn. They caught and denied the Home Depot charges and so only had to suck up the $1 charge. They also called me to verify those charges. I'm not saying that Chase is perfect, but it at least shows that they're better prepared to handle fraud.
It would be nice if companies had some sort of fraud preparedness rating you could check out before doing business with them
by mjsager at 06:01 PM on 02/20/08
"I knew I had used my debit/atm card all weekend, all around Manhattan and Brooklyn. "
I bet it got lifted at a restaurant, bar or a hacked ATM. Never use a card at a restaurant or ATM that's not at a bank. Its too easy for a waiter to copy the number down. Never use your card at an ATM that isn't at a bank, its very easy to have another card reader over the real one and a camera that watches you type in your PIN.
I learned my lesson after my bank card showed a donation transaction at a montessori school in Arizona soon after a trip to New York where I used my card in the exact same way. I fired an email to the montessori school and they said they didn't even have a donation page up.
They got back to me later in the day and confirmed that someone had found their old donation page and had rung up 10,000 one dollar donations with 10,000 different credit cards. They were testing all the cards.
I was pretty lucky because I caught the transaction right away. My bank seemed uninterested what I discovered. They even told me that the type of transaction required the card to be presented in Arizona, which was impossible because I was in Michigan at the time. I cancelled my card and got a new one.
What's interesting is the speed at the fraud happened here, and how quickly the money got removed from the account.
by yobitch at 06:18 PM on 02/20/08
I was affected by this fraud as well. The thieves knew what they were doing, verifying accounts first (every affected account started with a $1 bank authorization from AOL - a service I've never used). They managed to get $1500 from my account! I went to my branch today and managed to get the 10 day waiting period reduced to 1-2 days. So anybody this happened to should get into their branch and politely (and pathetically) request an expedited resolution... "
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... Pluto~start=180
"MGD
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-31
Fort Lauderdale, FL
reply to MGD
webperfecttemplates.com 760-690-3138 Web Perfect Designs, LLC is finished as of several days ago, the merchant account is locked, all transfers have ceased. The criminals subsequently pulled the website »webperfecttemplates.com
MGD"
Send your dispute with your bank IN WRITING, to preserve your rights under FCBA or Reg. E. FAX, with followed by mail, CRRR. File a police report (this is theft, not an "error"), request a fraud affidavit from your bank, and send it with a copy of your police report.
Then ask them if they filed a SAR, and report them to OCC if they failed to. Indicate that you reported a FRAUDULENT CHARGE, NOT merely a "merchant error", and that this "merchant" is widely reported to be making other fraudulent charges.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... Pluto~start=180
Debit and check cards are NOT safe. Close them. Use only credit cards for retail or on-line purchases. Use only ATM cards requiring PINs for cash, and only at your bank's own ATM machines.