My credit card was used fraudulently last week to purchase £1,000 of designer clothes I assume somebody got the card number, we recently spent a weekend away at a hotel and used the card there What shocks me is that the thieves purchased these clothes over the phone and got them delivered to an empty house So it's possible to steal credit card details, then order £1,000 of product over the telephone from a retailer (thus avoiding any CCTV) the retailer will not only agree to deliver to an address not registered on the card, but will not check the address (maybe by calling up the cardholder or the bank)....so the thieves get it delivered to an empty house, and just wait for the delivery there. No wonder there is so much credit card fraud, when it's that easy to do
One of my clients came to me, they had a bill from an electrical retailer turn up on their store card account, which he hadnt ordered. It was a projection tv (yep, guess it was around 2001 ish) and some other stuff, around £2000. He rang comet, and they gave him a delivery address, and like you, it was an empty house as we went there. So we told the retailer, and then told the police. The police attitude was that they didn't have the manpower to stake out the house, yet they had a delivery time, and someone had to be there to receive the delivery, so they had a 100% nailed on conviction, lazy gits So instead, I had another client of the less formal variety wait near the property, and once the goods turned up, he and some colleagues caught the thieves, taught them a lesson, and made sure the goods did not get off the truck and were returned to the retailer unsold.
By the time I found out, the goods had been delivered. It was only chance that we found out after a few days, as my wife went to use her card and it came up "refer to bank" due to the recent unusual large transaction. Shame it wasn't "referred to the bank" at the time. The bank just call the registered cardholder, which would have prevented the fraud in this case. Surely it shouldn't be possible to specify a delivery address not registered on the card though? That is just asking for fraud to be committed.
Your card can get read/scanned at any number of places by some unscrupulous person then they turn around and sell it to a syndicate who quickly charges up what they can. I suspect my card was read at a restaurant by an employee who then did this. Charges appeared later in Germany for gas. I suspect it happened twice at the same place over about a year period.
Credit card companies do call to verify if the delivery address is different from the registered address, or if the spending is not in line with the "pattern" of spending. I don't know why they didn't call you to verify the new shipping address. Usually there is very sophisticated software checking to see what looks legit and what doesn't. Possibly they loosened up the parameters because people charge more around the holiday season.
