Fraud

Saturday morning got an email from mom saying that TD Visa had sent a letter to the house saying there was a suspicion of fraudulent activity regarding my Visa card. I sent off an email to the company inquiring about it and got back the usual automated email replies that really are of no use to anybody.

I wasn't all that concerned because you always hear stories of how people are travelling and Visa gets suspicious because of the different purchases being made and puts a hold on transactions. Actually I thought to myself, "After two years of being in Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Thailand and back to Korea, they are only getting suspicious now??" Plus I rarely even use my card except occasionally for Ebay purchases or Skype. Anyhow, I didn't take the letter to mean much until yesterday when I went to complete an Ebay transaction because I was going to put together a few little Easter packages for my friends over here where Easter seems to be nonexistant, I went to pay for my transaction and got a lovely little message saying, 'Your card company has restricted the use of this card, please call them'. Fantastic.

So I called the number on the back of my card and learned that "Card Reprentatives are available 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week" actually means that there are automated phone messages set up that you can spend half an hour on, pressing buttons to take you to various areas of help, but in the end only lead you to, "Thank you for calling TD Visa, our offices are closed, please call during office hours for further assistance."

Due to my lack of concern I put it out of my mind and went to meet Kevin for Starbucks. Then this morning I got up and had an email reply with a different 24 hour number on it, so I called them and talked to 3 different real people before being connected to the right department. Turns out someone was trying to use my Visa in Hong Kong for some $2000 purchase. Visa noticed it and put a hold on it, and then after that it was tried another 3 of 4 times for different amounts but thankfully the card had been restricted. On that same day I had tried to use my Visa in Homeplus by accident because I gave the checkout person the wrong card and she gave it back to me saying, "No." I had assumed at the time it was because it was a foreign card and most places in Korea don't take Visa (other than the fake Visa symbol they put on all their debit cards), but turns out it was cause they thought I was fraudulently trying to buy my rice and kimchi.

Anyhow all is well, no harm no foul. I wish I knew how my number was obtained in Hong Kong but the card has been cancelled and a new one is being mailed home thanks to the good, watchful people at Visa. Phew!