American Express Membership Rewards - two fraud charges on my Starwood card

A few hours ago I signed for an express UPS delivery package from Costco.

I hadn't ordered anything, considered refusing, then thought maybe my kids had sent something.

I opened the package to find a shipping order for a ‘tennis brace’, knew that Costco required American Express, checked my online account, found a different $800+ charge, phoned Amex, spoke to Fraud, they found a not-yet-posted charge for a $5000 tennis bracelet, ...

They cancelled the card (though I had to insist to get transferred to fraud), was told I was fully covered for the two charges, to get a pickup receipt from Costco for the bracelet, and then FedEx arrived!

I refused that package (which was the charge I had seen online)), and began to get very nervous. Whoever made the purchases had my Starwood AmEx number, my name address and phone, ... And the two purchases were sent to me.

I’m jumping at every strange noise, decided to also call the local police, and now am wondering what the actual scam is. Is it coincidence that the two trucks (UPS and FedEx) arrived within an hour of each other? Was someone planning to swoop by the front door and take packages? Might someone break in later?

My other Amex accounts are OK. I haven’t even been using this card. The fees are due next month and I was planning to cancel (I’m not traveling much) if I didn’t get a no-fee offer from Starwood.

Is any of this familiar. Where’s the gain?

Sylvia

....I refused that package (which was the charge I had seen online)), and began to get very nervous. Whoever made the purchases had my Starwood AmEx number, my name address and phone, ... And the two purchases were sent to me.

I’m jumping at every strange noise, decided to also call the local police, and now am wondering what the actual scam is. Is it coincidence that the two trucks (UPS and FedEx) arrived within an hour of each other? Was someone planning to swoop by the front door and take packages? Might someone break in later?....Is any of this familiar. Where’s the gain?



SylviaCaras:

I don't see any gain ... Very strange. I think you did exactly the right thing, to call Amexco and the police. I wish you ALL THE BEST. However, I believe that was it ... no more problems.
But how did they get all information: Starwood AmEx number, name address and phone ....?

SylviaCaras:

I don't see any gain ... Very strange. I think you did exactly the right thing, to call Amexco and the police. I wish you ALL THE BEST. However, I believe that was it ... no more problems.
But how did they get all information: Starwood AmEx number, name address and phone ....?

Maybe someone intercepted your mail.

Switch to paperless statements, to avoid a hard copy being sent around in the postal service, and sitting in a mailbox somewhere...

Thanks USAFAN. My name/address/phone is all over the web. So if you search for me, my details are easy to find.

I don't know how it got connected to my AmEx number.

Sylvia

A few hours ago I signed for an express UPS delivery package from Costco.

I hadn't ordered anything, considered refusing, then thought maybe my kids had sent something.

I opened the package to find a shipping order for a ‘tennis brace’, knew that Costco required American Express, checked my online account, found a different $800+ charge, phoned Amex, spoke to Fraud, they found a not-yet-posted charge for a $5000 tennis bracelet, ...

They cancelled the card (though I had to insist to get transferred to fraud), was told I was fully covered for the two charges, to get a pickup receipt from Costco for the bracelet, and then FedEx arrived!

I refused that package (which was the charge I had seen online)), and began to get very nervous. Whoever made the purchases had my Starwood AmEx number, my name address and phone, ... And the two purchases were sent to me.

I’m jumping at every strange noise, decided to also call the local police, and now am wondering what the actual scam is. Is it coincidence that the two trucks (UPS and FedEx) arrived within an hour of each other? Was someone planning to swoop by the front door and take packages? Might someone break in later?

My other Amex accounts are OK. I haven’t even been using this card. The fees are due next month and I was planning to cancel (I’m not traveling much) if I didn’t get a no-fee offer from Starwood.

Is any of this familiar. Where’s the gain?

Sylvia

You need to be a Costco member to shop there. Maybe someone stole your costco membership number as well. :confused:

It is absolutely a tactic of criminals to order things through the mail and then ship them to someone else's address--only I usually hear about things being shipped to a vacant house, for example. I wouldn't worry so much...these crooks sound like they have a low-level of sophistication if they can't even correctly direct their stolen merchandise to themselves!

Is any of this familiar. Where’s the gain?

Sylvia

Same thing happened to me about two weeks ago. An $800+ electronics item showed up at my door. Review of my Starwood Amex online statement showed concurrent charges from other vendors for $800+ items. I live in a very small and very safe neighborhood/town in a rural county, virtually no chance somebody would be lurking for the package or breaking in to get it.

Contact with vendors revealed shipping address for all the orders was my address. I had never done business with any of these vendors. Contact with one of the vendors revealed that the card number thieves had contacted the shipper and requested that the delivery address be changed from my address to another address. The gain then is to reroute expensive items from the cardholder’s address to an address where the thieves can retrieve the item. Shippers and vendors are apparently aware of the scam. Vendor requested item be returned to them once notified by the shipper of the situation. Not sure why one of the items arrived at my address. Did shipper ignore request for reroute? Were thieves too slow in making reroute request? Are thieves just perverse?

Amex assured me that I would incur no expenses for the bogus orders. As it happened, only one item reached me. Vendors were able to prevent delivery of the other items because of suspicious circumstances of the orders.

Hope this information makes you less jumpy.

You need to be a Costco member to shop there. Maybe someone stole your costco membership number as well. :confused:

You don't need to be a member to shop online. Anybody can shop costco.com, albeit with a 5% (or is it 10% now?) surcharge for nonmembers

DCAGUY: Hope this information makes you less jumpy.

It surely does - sharing the pain is a very good thing! I'm glad I'm not the only one and sorry you had to deal with this.

hs1: I'll follow through on the Costco card, in case that's where the leak is. I'm not the primary, but I'll ask those who are to check their credit card statements.

Sylvia

I have a lot of experience with this type of thing. Both in my personal life (my Amex card was stolen and similar events occured) and professionally as a security consultant in years past.

I can tell you with some certainty that if those items were ordered to your house intentionally, someone intended to come by and swipe them almost immediately after they were left at the door, in the event they were left at the door. That's a very typical scenario.

Definitely make a police report. Definitely.

Also, pull your credit report right away and check it for anomalies, and if necessary, place a fraud alert on it. Credit card theft is one thing, full-scale identify theft can be much more complicated. Don't panic, but keep an eye on your credit report and your other cards/bank accounts.

Check here for more info: http://www.experian.com/credit-education/fraud-prevention.html

The next thing I would do, if you are the type of person that likes to get to the bottom of things, is to look at your statement and pick out a few places that you've recently used the card at that you think might be a place someone would swipe it. Restaurants, shops at the Mall, bad neighborhoods, etc.

Go back to those places and talk to the Manager or the highest ranking person you can find (definitely not a desk employee or waiter or etc). Strike up a conversation, tell them what happened and tell them you suspect their store was where the card number was stolen. Ask them if they suspect any of their employees would be capable of such a thing or if there's been previous similar incidents. This is an uncomfortable conversation to have, and more often than you might imagine, they will tell you things.

I had this happen at a hotel. I knew my Amex was stolen either at a particular hotel or at a particular rental car agency. I went to both, and had the same conversation. The car agency didn't think it was likely, but the manager of the hotel immediately looked at me and said, "I bet I know exactly who it was."

Boom - I passed the info to the cops, guy was arrested within a week, he went to jail.

So, yes, you should be concerned that these people have your address and etc. However, the majority of the time, these are non-violent paranoid criminals who really just want to steal things, and are probably as adverse to an encounter with you as you are with them. If anything, they're usually terrified at the idea of being caught red-handed. The mere sight of you is often enough to send them running. Of course, there are situations in which this is not the case, but the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't be frightened. Just make a police report, get a new card number, and go about your business. Take reasonable precautions that are appropriate for your neighborhood and general safety, but don't sweat it too much.

I have found that credit card companies have an almost zero interest in catching criminals but just mitigating there own loses by closing accounts etc. I left my my wallet in a taxi and the driver filled up his cab and then gave the card to an acomplice. I spent the entire night tracking items ordered and where they were going to be delivered. To my dismay all my card company seemed to be intrested in was closing my account and getting me new numbers. They knew they merchant would eat the cost of goods delivererd. I contacted fed x , the local police in California so they could catch the crooks. Do not waste your time imho just realize you pay for it every day in the cost of goods.

Check your computer as well - someone could have hacked in and collected your personal info. You could as easily be the victim of a prank as a scam.

Thanks USAFAN. My name/address/phone is all over the web. So if you search for me, my details are easy to find.

I don't know how it got connected to my AmEx number.

Sylvia

Yes, you are all over the web. A little high profile if you ask me. You should look into www.reputationdefender.com They can clear some of your info unless of course you want to be tracked down.

thebkguy - the card hasn’t been used since April, has been in my desk drawer, so wherever the number came from, it’s from old use.

DCAGUY - I contacted the other vendor (got the number from the charge posting to my account). The fraud woman wasn’t at all surprised. She said yes, people might come by to steal from the front door. She also said that if phone numbers don’t match and emails bounce the order will still likely go through since lots of customers try to protect their privacy that way.

sdix - I’ve been using email for rights advocacy for 15 years, before the web was so popular (gopher was cutting edge). And I used my own name because yes, I did want people to be able to find me. (If I were beginning now, I’d set up a web name and maybe a PO box.) The services at the ReputationDefenders link are interesting, so far more expensive than the current pain, I wonder if they really can clean things up.

I appreciate all the input, feel calmer, still need to clean up the fall out, paperwork from American Express, police report number, ...

Sylvia

Crap- now I've gotta find another way to get my girlfriend her tennis bracelet .... :mad:

Both items are returned, I've received letters from American Express acknowleging fraud. There are only charges I've made on my account. I thought this was over.

On my machine is a recorded phone message. It says it's from Dell, and that the bank denied the charges for the item I ordered and to check the email I used for the order.

So my assumption is the email is phony, and the cancelled card was used to order from Dell. This is a good thing.

There were no details from the Dell call. My guess is they won't pick it up as fraud and catch this person, but will just not process the order. I don't want to get stuck in a Dell telephone tree - do you think I need to call? Will AmEx note the attempt to use that card and maybe try to track it down? Or does no one really care very much?

If this was a local person, I think a game plan might have been to watch my apartment door for the sorry-we-missed-you delivery notice, take the notice, fake some ID, and pick up the package at UPS. Else it's pranks and harassment. Or stupidity.

Sylvia

do I need to call Dell?

Yes, I would call ... to bring the whole episode to an end.