E-books, Credit Card theft and Equifax

Published on November 29, 2007 By foreverserenity In Blogging

I read an article with the title on MSNBC's The Red Tape Chronicles written by Bob Sullivan. Apparently there is quite a bit of sneakiness, scams in fact, going on whenever consumers order E-books or use their credit cards to pay for services from the Equifax Website. Their credit cards get charged with an innocuous fee of $4.95 or something similar. The charges are usually not above $10 according to the article. Equifax said that their website is safe! A lot of comfort that is when so many people have experienced fraudulent charges only after doing business with them!

It happened to the person Mr. Sullivan wrote about, Chris Jupin, who wrote about his experience on his blog site, not realising that there would be hundreds of people who have experienced the same problem! One of the things that came to my mind, as I'm sure it did to the writer and Mr. Jupin was that hundreds of charges for $4.95 eventually adds up to thousands of dollars! Someone was raking in the dough, fraudulently!

Degismarket was the firm doing all the charges to a lot of people's debit and credit cards for E-books that they didn't order! Chris Jupin canceled his credit card and demanded a refund, which he received, then he reported the company to the Better Business Bureau, which to me is always a good thing to do!

When we shop online we are leaving ourselves open to so many fraudulent incidents, as someone recently said to me when I told her that I will pay my bill on line upon stopping in to pay a bill in person but their computer was down. She asked me if I wasn't worried about doing that. I told her yes there are concerns and that is why I am always careful but I only use on line payments to major companies not small ones who I am not familiar with. She said it's something that she will never do!

As I read the unfortunate experiences of Chris Jupin and the other people who made many a complaints about other E-book firms on his blog, I realised how careful one has to be and why so many people like that store clerk are not convinced of the safety of doing business on line.

One of the thing to always do on a regular basis is check your billing statements, both debit/credit cards and your bank statements to confirm that what is there are transactions that you originated and not some unknown company pretending to be someone else!

One thing that Mr. Sullivan said in his article jumped out at me:

"Credit card thieves often create fake businesses to process bogus transactions -- that's much easier than using stolen cards to make purchases at legitimate retailers, and one of the quickest ways to turn stolen numbers into cash.

It is unusual for the fraudulent Web sites to issue refunds, however."

That is so true! There are so many fake businesses out there, what is a consumer to do? Research, research, research! That's my answer. You have to check with the Better Business Bureau's website to see if there is anything against a new and unknown company you intend to do business with. You should also check there stats on websites such as go to the website of the city where they are from on their Department of Revenue's Website to see if they are legitimately listed is another thing to do! You can also just Google them and see what comes up! And above all else, sometimes you just have to go by instincts! If you have purchased E-books on a regular basis, I would suggest you review your monthly statements to see if you were fraudulently charged too. Apparently it has also happened to even those who didn't do business with Equifax!

Here is the Red Tape Chronicles article: Link

Comments

Dr Guy

on Nov 30, 2007

Most of my credit cards have a max on them. If there is a large charge, I am notified immediately and can contest it. But it is the nickle and dime ones that do get you! It is always best to review every charge on your card, no matter how small.

foreverserenity

on Nov 30, 2007

But it is the nickle and dime ones that do get you! It is always best to review every charge on your card, no matter how small

That is what fool people, the small charges we don't really notice!

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