Credit card fraud

[anonyme]

Last night I placed an order online and was surprised this morning to see no confirmation email. So I went to the BECU website to check and see if anything had been billed to my account. To my surprise, the item I’d ordered was not there – but hundreds of dollars of other charges had been made in Texas for tools and fried chicken. These charges were allowed to go through, but the account had since been frozen, which was why my legitimate charge was denied. I received no notification from BECU for either the charges or the account freeze, despite having signed up for such alerts.
Both charges had been manually entered at the POS. In the case of the tool store, two cards had been declined before my info was successfully entered. Red flags, anyone?!! Some dude is entering credit card numbers from a list, and you don’t bother to ask for ID?
My question is this: has anyone else had a BECU credit or debit card compromised? It seems likely that the info was harvested online, and I’m trying to discern how that happened. It might also be interesting to know if others have experienced fraudulent credit card activity that originated in Texas. A third charge originated in Kansas, but was declined.
And yes, before anyone asks, I have discussed these issues with the entities in question.

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[honolulugal]

Why yes we have been compromised with one of our BECU debit cards. And BECU was excellent with us, closed out the one card it happened with told us to get copies of the charges and where (Walmart online purchase) and “who” it happened with told us to file a police report to which we did. We then dug deeper and to find out it was some one who lived 6 blocks from us and they were only the place of origin for the “items” to be delivered to and then they shipped it off to Russia.
The KCS was confident that the person at that address had no idea what he was being paid on-line to do and also said he had never gotten paid from that person in Russia yet, KCS told him to stop right now otherwise he would go to jail.
BECU credited us back the 660.00 but I think they may not had if we hadn’t filed a police report.
Good Luck with your mess…it’s a time consuming one at that.

Oh and this is Waikikigirl….for the life of me I can never log back on to the forums!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by honolulugal.

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[anonyme]

Waikikigirl, thank you for your story. That’s crazy – it seems incredible that KCS thought your ‘neighbor’ was not involved. “Mess” is right. I spent most of yesterday on the phone, making all the necessary reports and trying to get more info. Mostly I’m really frustrated with BECU’s handling of the situation. I’ve been given info that is conflicting, incomplete, and the website does not work properly. I’ve completely lost confidence in them. When I made the police report, the officer (who had been through the same experience) thought I should change banks based on the response. So much of this could be prevented if banks and businesses would just exercise some caution and common sense.

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[MercyMoi]

A little over a year ago I tried to run my BECU debit card at a grocery store but the charge wouldn’t go through. I called BECU to find out what was going on. It turns out BECU froze my account because they detected attempts of fraudulent purchases, but they didn’t alert me to the fraud or the freeze. When I asked for more details their policy wouldn’t permit me any. They said they don’t want an innocent business to get a bad reputation for skimming numbers. (!!) I found this frustrating because I believe the business should know (if they don’t already) and I should have the right to know to avoid them! BECU did cautiously help me narrow down which of my recent uses it could have been and I’m pretty sure my card was skimmed at a city parking meter in the ID. I can’t prove that however (and BECU won’t confirm it!).

All that to say, yes, this happened to me and, no, BECU didn’t alert me to the fraud. I only found out when my debit card stopped working.

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[anonyme]

Thank you, MM. I appreciate the verification.
Years ago, I set up an online account with ING Direct, now owned by Capital One. I think it was the first online bank. I still have an account with them, and have never had a single issue. Whether it be security, notifications, website functionality – no problems, ever. I signed up with BECU because I needed a local bank, and because they had high interest savings and a low interest credit card. However, the problems have been constant, and whenever I make a complaint they try to gaslight me into thinking I’m just too stupid to understand technology.
Question: does anyone know a good local bank or credit union? I see Verity is opening in the Junction.

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[HappyOnAlki]

I’ve been with Sound CU for years — since they were Seattle Telco — and have never had an issue. They have a branch in the Junction full of friendly folks.

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[dhg]

I do have a place to recommend: Umpqua Bank. Located at California and Admiral, they are a local bank that learns your name and provides personal service. Talk to Greg Wilson, 206.694.5461. He’ll set you up. Any problems with a card, you can deal with them, not some anonymous person on the phone.

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[squareeyes]

2-3 years back my husband’s BECU debit card stopped working. I contacted BECU and was told that he had used it in the Fremont 7-11 ATM which had skimming problems so they froze the card. BECU did not notify us and did not reissue the card until I called.

I’m having a different issue with them. When you billpay via their online banking, there is no way to see online when the check has actually cashed. The date listed is the date they’ve sent the payment. In order to find out if/when it was cashed, you have to call their customer service, who then have to transfer you to their IT group. This makes no sense to me.

There are things I love about BECU, but they can seriously frustrate as well.

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[anonyme]

Square, I agree with you that a few things about BECU are cool, like their generous savings rate and high credit limits. However, their notification system does not work at all. Yesterday I received a letter from them (a week after they denied two, then allowed two fraudulent purchases) saying they had frozen my account after not being able to reach me via an old phone number – even though my settings were for email notification.

There are several times I’ve had bizarre things happen on their website, only to be told by tech that what I was describing was impossible. For example, I was once made to go through a lengthy security logon online. The security questions were not any that I had chosen, as the questions were unanswerable (something like “where did you attend your prom?” when I never attended one at all…) and did not match the notes I’d made at the time the questions were set. I’ve updated other info as well, only to find it missing or altered later on. Really bizarre setup.

BTW, thanks to those who made recommendations for other banks.

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