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
The merchant account is being run for purposes of funnelling fraudulent charges, and as long as the increasing fraud levels stay ahead of the chargeback fees from consumer fraud disputes, the sleeping bank or payment processor apparently just keeps helpfully stealing the money.
Most of the earlier complaints appear to be from people who noticed the fraudulent charges via online statements or missing money in checking accounts. As you have experienced, we will now start to see people who catch the charges on statements, since we are approaching the 1 month point from when this started.
I called the Chase Fraud Prevention number and after going through their little questionnaire, the CSR said not to worry, that I will not be liable for anything. I was not worried to begin with. That's why I use credit cards and not debit cards. They closed that account and are sending a new card.
I have to say that Chase seems to be very proactive about these charges and did not try to give me the runaround.
It looks like these charges started a few weeks back. Needless to say, I hope they catch those behind them.
Do NOT have it reissued.
Use only credit cards for online or retail purchases.
Get an ATM card with PIN if you must.
Wells Fargo canceled my card and is looking into it.
Here is what my online banking showed:
DEBIT CRD PURCHASE 02/11 Digital Star +44208123 +442081237377 GB $149.99
Has to be a scam.
Chase's fraud department called me and I definitely did not remember charging anything toward a "theatrical production" company.
I was very happy with Chase spotting this problem before I did - but it is still unnerving!
You caught a "ping".
Two other complaints reported seeing ping charges preceeding the larger fraudulent charges.
Other pings have been reported to be through Amazon, and Speedway.
These crooks appear to have mapped out a bunch of sites that are vulnerable to being used to "test" credit card numbers and expiration dates. It appears that they then use this card information to run the fraudulent charges through this abandoned "digital star" account.
That would remove their site from usefulness as a "pinging" site.