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
Called my bank (MBNA) thay said I had to fill out the form on back of statement to dispute the charge. Not helpful at all. They refuse to freeze my account either. They could not do anything until I completed the form on the back of the statement.!!!!!
Send in the fraud dispute when you get the paperwork, but mail it certified.
But don't just wait for their paperwork to arrive. Send notice to MBNA via both FAX and certified mail that the charge is fraudulent, and that you notified them of this and requested that the account be frozen, by phone on nn/nn/nn. Keep a copy for your records, including your certified receipt.
FRB Reg. E disputes (which cover EFT charges to checking accounts) often are decided on whether notice was given timely. You already notified them by phone (but how do you prove that?), and if you mail notice certified so you have proof, FRB Reg. E deems that to be "constructive notice" as of the date your letter enters the postal system (provable by your PO stamped certified receipt), even if they fail to act on it, misunderstand it, or even claim they never received it. You want proof you did so, regardless of whether they "lose" it, or claim it was too late.
MBNA should be assisting you in preventing further fraud, rather than exposing you to more.
File a complaint against MBNA with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at www.occ.gov
www.ic3.gov/ (FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center)
sfoectf@einformation.usss.gov (Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force in San Francisco)
It was a similar situation, where the pattern was becoming clear from many individual reports on consumer complaint forums, but the crooks were just spreading the charges around and keeping them small so no particular bank would do much. Every new victim had to go through the whole dispute process, while the fraudulent merchant accounts kept funneling the money overseas.
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2007/11/27 ... eft-and-equifax
MGD's tracking their activities:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19620593-Ebo ... DigitalAgePluto
Settlement by Wakovia over their part in enabling theft through fraudulent charges to consumer accounts by fraudulent telemarketers. Wakovia officers ignored indicators of fraud, such as very high chargeback rates, due to profitability of the chargeback fees.
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/10/06/daily46.html
Recent breaking story on investigation of HSBC, in connection with allegations of money laundering. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46134096/ns/us_ne ... ney-laundering/
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/paypal-american-express-implicated-in-bank-fraud/
Banks are required by the Patriot Act to "know their customers", and report suspicious financial activity, but it appears that some may be looking the other way, offering services to get around these nuisances. That opens up the whole system to increased fraud.
Thanks to complaint wire I was alerted to the scam after I "googled the number" on the merchant's line of my credit card statement. It is fortunate that I checked my statement on line today.
It looks like BofA is now catching some of these before customers see them, but still requiring a fraud dispute to get a refund. By all means block the card number immediately, since some others are reporting multiple charges showing up.
It doesn't take a whole lot of paperwork to dispute the charge as fraudulent. BofA will send you a dispute form, listing the charge, and you check and sign to certify you didn't authorize the charge and did not benefit from it. Mail it back, while keeping a copy for yourself. You might also want to FAX it directly to their fraud department, as protection against mail delivery mistakes.
That's it.
By disputing it as fraudulent, BofA can push it back on the scammer or his bank, piling up chargeback fees on them. Maybe if the fees or chargeback ratio gets high enough, the other bank will close this account down.
Was it under "digital star", or another name?
Did it show up as pending, then go away?
Was your fraudulent charge "$49.99" or was it "$149.99" as reported by others?
Interesting that they are trying to "manage" their customer complaints instead of blocking this fraudulent "merchant".
Send notice to BofA by U.S. Mail, mailed certified for proof of date mailed, notifying them that the charge is fraudulent, and requesting that they block your debit card. Send this notice to the dispute address from your bank statement. They are required to accept disputes of EFT fraud under FRB Reg. E.
In addition call or go into your bank and block your debit cards.
It is not safe to have active debit cards. Use only credit cards for online or retail purchases.
If you have any problems getting the charges refunded, file a complaint against your bank with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at www.occ.gov
Why don't you contact Bob Sullivan, at Red Tape Chronicles on MSNBC? He does stories on problems like this.
The fraud department clearly knows what is going on, yet the first line customer service people, also alerted to this "digital star" fraud, have been told to "triage" complaints, delaying restoring money to consumer accounts.
We have to ask, why?
This may imply BofA may be worried about whether they can get all the money back from the perpetrator's bank or payment processor. They may know something about the payment processor we do not. (At this point, we don't even know who that payment processor is.)
We are also beginning to see the perps adapt their scam with feedback from the variable success of the fraud attempts. Already they have raised the take from $74.95 to double, even started reusing earlier used card info to run through additional charges.
Are they starting to taylor their bank targetting based on which banks respond quickest to consumer disputes?