Purchasing over the phone and on the Internet is becoming more popular as it becomes easier and more convenient. Almost anyone can make a website and put a shopping cart on the website. With this, people can hack the shopping cart which will allow them to obtain your credit card number and charge any amount they want to it over and over again.

Identify Fraud

While purchasing anything with your credit card over the Internet, it is always best to use normally used, high traffic commercial websites. There are many products on the Internet, so go to the direct website of the brand of the items you want or to a large e-commerce store like Amazon or e-Bay because they have a trusted, fraud-safe website security. You can tell if a website is secure by looking at the address bar. The left quarter of the address bar will be shaded a color for part of the website address. This means the site is using a security program to prevent credit card fraud. If you are purchasing from a smaller, unsecured website, try to always use websites that direct you through a secure third party money transaction website such as PayPal or Google Checkout. Don't just enter your credit card number and click submit. If that is the only option a site provides, email the firm and ask if you can pay through PayPal or Google Checkout. To identify credit card fraud you can do several things. Check your credit card statements monthly for any suspicious purchases that you know you did not make, as this is the best indicator of credit card fraud. Also go the Federal Trade Commission website request a free credit report. (See Resource 1.) Enter your personal information and click submit. The report will display all your credit card accounts and loans. The reports will display balances and payment history. With this report, you can see if any credit card you don't regularly use has recent activity or a balance on it, which will point to credit card fraud.

Report Credit Fraud

Contact your credit card company immediately and tell a representative you never made the purchases you believe are fraudulent. If the representative says that is wasn't an error, then tell her to freeze that card and tell her to have her company monitor it for other fraudulent charges. Contact your local police immediately to file a credit card fraud report. Provide all the details of the credit card and the fraudulent transactions, including dates, charge locations and amounts. If the charges amount to more than $2,000, contact the Federal Trade Commission to report the credit card fraud. You can call the FTC at file a fraud report at 1-877-ID-THEFT or you can do it online. (See Resource 1.)

Source:

Report Credit Fraud

Resource:

Federal Trade Commission

Report Fraud