Victim of Bank/Identity Fraud

I got a call earlier today from HSBC “corporate security” who wanted to review transactions on my account. Turns out someone’s been making fraudulent transactions using my debit card! Apparently not only do they have the card number but they’ve duplicated the card and even swiped it yesterday at a gas station in Canada. This came as a surprise since I practically never use my debit card and I’ve never lost it (it just sits in my wallet). Luckily HSBC told me that I’m not liable for any of the fraud charges.

Thanks HSBC, For Alerting Me

The fraudulent charges started around the beginning of August. I think there were about 3 charges they made which never went through so that’s why I didn’t notice anything wrong. I have to give kudos to HSBC for being able to catch fraud like this so quickly. The lady on the phone was also very nice. My home phone’s not working at the moment and they called me on my business line so they clearly made an effort to get a hold of me. I’m happy with HSBC - they have no minimums, not a lot of stupid fees, tons of locations, great Internet banking, and of course good fraud prevention services. Good service needs attention too - so thanks HSBC, you rock.

Identity Theft Likely Caused by Inadequate Protection of Consumer Data

It looks like the fraudsters first tried to make a small charge at the beginning of August to probably test the card. I’m pretty sure my debit card data was probably stored in some database that got hacked or stolen. You hear about this in the news a lot these days and that’s just the big companies that actually report it. Who knows what goes on at smaller companies and if they even know their data is compromised.

I’m not entirely sure but the last time I remember using the card was to get money at an ATM in Florida during Spring Break back in March 2005. During freshman year I used the debit card regularly for a few months but that was back in 2001. But then I stopped because it would always be an uphill battle if I ever want to dispute a charge, since the money has already left my checking account. I’m thinking the likeliest scenario is that one of the vendors had their data compromised and not only is that bad in itself but they should not be keeping customers’ financial data for that long anyway!