American Express Membership Rewards - Fraud on my Delta AMEX

My Delta AMEX has been sitting in my safe for five weeks while I have been out of the country. The day I get back I get an e-mail notice that there has been fraudulent activity on my card. I call the number on the back of my card and they forward me to security. We go thru the process of getting a new card. One of two fraudulent charges went thru, the second charge was refused.

I am thinking how unusual this is. I would think that after a card number got located for a hijacking it would get used right away, but like I said, I hadn't used the card in five weeks.

Ideas?

Mike

I think a lot more fraud than people think comes from waiters or cashiers swiping the number/exp/CID off the card. In their minds you will not connect it to them if they wait a while holding onto the info.

Dumpster diving, compromised vendor systems and the merchant employees are all way more likely to cause your number to be used fraudulently than anything else. And there is no reason any of those things have to be exploited immediately. They have the numbers and they'll try to use them when they are ready to. They also might have been compromised by one party and sold to another, resulting in the delay of them being attempted.

I've had several cards compromised. Amex has always worked with me and it has turned a bad experience into one where i am glad to have them backing me.

I don't think dumpster diving, waiters or cashiers play a major role in stolen credit card numbers. Not any more.

Nowadays, most of the credit card numbers are stolen either by:

1) Computer break-ins at back-end payment processors:

- Heartland Payment Systems hack 2009: tens of millions of cards
- RBS Worldpay hack 2008: 1,5 million credit cards
- Hannaford Brothers hack 2008: 4,2 million credit and debit cards
- TJX hack 2007: more than 45 million credit and debit cards
- CardSystems Solutions hack 2005: 40 million credit and debit card accounts

2) Using keyloggers to infect everyday computers by the thousands; then record the credit card numbers and security codes as people type them in while doing online shopping.

Sure, some waiters are swiping your cards too. That's not the main problem.