Digital Star unauthorized charge
Complaint
Steve
Country: United States
A preauthorization for $74.95 from Digital Star with a bad phone number (208-123-7377) showed up on my debit card account 1/29/12. Called bank fraud department and had the account killed immediately. They stopped the charge since it had not completed. Do not know who Digital Star is or what the charge was for. I use the card for online purchases mainly through Amazon. No purchases in the last 30 dqays. However, I placed orders in the last 60 days from a company called Turncraft (woodworking plans), Personal Creations, and Entirely Pets. I wonder what companies others have used recently.
Comments
It started with the Digital Star 74.?? what ever charge on my debit card, 2-6-12 around 10:30am.
Hmmm. When I got home after work I checked my online account page. Lovely.
Walmart.com charge for $314.98 leaving me like $35 bucks to live on. Called my bank (Wells Fargo) killed my debit card, new one will come. Got a claim going and reference number.
Emailed Walmart HQ, and started that guantlet. They actually have taken this garbage seriously and they want me to provide ongoing documentation and all that jazz. The Walmart charge has just remained in the pending stage so far but those funds are still, ah, locked up.
The digistar amount has been 'provisionally refunded' or whatever and that charge went from pending to deducted and provisionally refunded. The Walmart (big) charge is still in the 'pending charge zone. Walmart has been acceptably cool with email responses and they are requesting additional material on this matter in the form of a faxed police report, etc.
I have had my hands full this week with dealing with my 90 yr. old mothers ongoing care and attention needs. I will get around to the police report, and other institutional needs as soon as I have the time. Momcare first, my operational funds killing electronic internet fraud matters and dealing with it second.
Until we all wake up and elect government officials and judges who will provide profoundly justified super harsh penalties to new millennium criminals...we get what we vote for, amen.
Good luck to all of us.
This was on my netspend card and they told me this was an international company and they were going to investigate. Until then I am out the money...
This is messed up how anyone can just charge you for anything and steal your money...
I'm Visa and they've voided my card and sent me the paperwork which I certainly will complete. I am also a Minnesotan and have bought on-line through Amazon, but not in recent months. My numbers are in their system.
The Visa rep told me the charge was for "theater or show tickets." I was in Honolulu when the charge was made.
I am in philadelphia
Big, wait, some of the biggest high profile compainies on the planet are getting mentioned/named/associated with this dastardly ordeal in one way or another. I let them know what was going on here. They won't put up with people behind criminal activities generating bad publicity.
The people behind this international scam have stepped in some heavy doo-doo.
The super-geek squads are fully involved now. Welcome to 2012 cyber/data/web/internet/hack wars.
No matter how much those behind this garbage get, I would not want to be them for one minute.
Tonight everything I was taken for was SUDDENLY gone and my bank account is right back where it should be. MOAON AABE
This Digital Star company is some sort of Ticket broker selling tickets to sold out events and such. The contact information on their website is the same as what appeared on my bank statement.
I am not sure but is there not some way to determine who the owner of the website domain name is.
http://www.digitalstar.us/index.cfm
Perhaps that may lead to the culprit.
I always thought that at the end of a bank routing number was an individual that opened the account. The money being taken by Digital Star has to be going somewhere and to someone. The culprit has to collect all this money he/she is taking and I am a bit baffled as to why my bank is not able to tell me where my money is going after all they did send it to another bank using a routing number.
I am also stumped as to why our banks, especially BofA, has not flagged incoming Digital Star authorizations to prevent further fraudulent activity. From what I was tod they are not able to because they can not distinguish which transactions are real and which are fraudulent. My answer to this would be to decline the charge and call the customer to get authoriztion; if the customer approves the charge then authorize it and if the customer does not authorize then decline.
I have not had any overseas transactions on my account and this Digital Star should have been caught by BofA.
I would like to report this fraud to an agency other then my bank, because I do not think the bank will take this far enough. The bank will credit the account after they determine the charge was not made or authorized by me but most likely not pursue the matter any further. Anyone know what agency to report this to in hopes that it gets pursued
http://www.secretservice.gov/contact.shtml