Credit Card Fraud

[DOMINCAN BOY]

My credit card company put a block on my card after buying a washing machine a fridge and a cooker in the Dominican Republic
When i phoned them back in the UK,
they told me to tell them next time
when i want to use it in the D.R a little late if it was fraud:ermm:3 separate transactions

 

[Skippy1]

I had a problem very much like this poster in another country ...it took a while to sort out but the banks did eventually refund the money. It taught me a lesson in that I never use a credit card any more for small purchases or car hire.
I have two debit cards and I control the amount (cash Balance) with top ups by Electronic banking. This way they (Thieves) can only take to the maximum that is in the account and it is easy to keep on top of the balance because you have to transfer money as it runs out so any transaction out of the norm would alert you very quickly ie the next time you use it it would not work.
I use two because of the possibility of a errant ATM eating a card and taking 10 days to get a replacement or the original back.
It is also possible to have a card that you load with money as a one off and when its used up you can dispose of or buy another one they are handy for things like emergency funds etc.
Most banks will give you good advice on travelling abroad and the best way to look after your money.
It is important not only to tell your card company you are travelling but also keep telling them if you are a way for a long time...eg call every 10 days to say you will be home on a given date !!.

Skippy1

 

[dv8]

feel better - not only cards from nice civilized countries are gold for thieves. the other day poular called miesposo asking if he spent 1600 dollars in a shop somewhere in NYC. there you go - when he was there last time (in february) someone got hold of his cc number and used it.
of course we had a new card issued but it was upsetting nonetheless...

 

[rio2003]

Car hire deposit - credit card needed.

It taught me a lesson in that I never use a credit card any more for small purchases or car hire.

Skippy1

I may be wrong, anyone who knows different please correct me, but it is impossible to rent a car (from a reputable company) without leaving a major credit card as deposit. How else are they going to ensure payment in the event of an accident?

What I do is give them a card with the least credit limit on it that I can get away with and notify the card issuer of the amounts that should be authorised.


Rio

 

[Yachtmaster]

I have used credit cards in the DR many times for car rentals, hotels, shopping, you name it without problem. I would rather carry a cc with a maximum $50.00 liability for loss or fraud, which most cc companies seem to waive anyhow, rather than cash. Flash a wad of cash around or even a wallet and you are a prime target for an assault and robbery. Debit cards, I hear, offer no fraud protection. With on-line banking, you can check your cc balance regularly for irregularities. Besides, my cc offers points on dollars spent which I can use for air travel to the DR!

An interesting thing that is done in Italy for Italian cc holders is when a charge is logged to their cc a text message outlining the charge is sent to their mobile phone. Too bad that has not caught on in North America yet............

 

[Skippy1]

not impossible just harder

I may be wrong, anyone who knows different please correct me, but it is impossible to rent a car (from a reputable company) without leaving a major credit card as deposit. How else are they going to ensure payment in the event of an accident?

What I do is give them a card with the least credit limit on it that I can get away with and notify the card issuer of the amounts that should be authorised.


Rio

You can hire a car with a visa debit card no problems, I have done so many times. The reason I said I would not use a Credit card and prefer a debit is because the amount is limited to funds you already have ie it is not credit.
If you are a victim of fraud on a CC it is "credit and comes with high interest rates. Even if you manage to convince the card company that it is a fr?ud it can take months to resolve. This will appear on your credit report as a borrowing unless the CC company agrees to remove it pending investigation.
If you are applying for a loan or mortgage it could be a problem. In my case I had a fraud under investigation for 9 months for over 40,000 US dollars,Not here in the DR admittedly.
I like the idea of the Cards you can load with money instead of travellers cheques as a better and safer way to travel too.

Skippy1

 

[rio2003]

Misunderstood you

:ermm:

You can hire a car with a visa debit card no problems, I have done so many times. The reason I said I would not use a Credit card and prefer a debit is because the amount is limited to funds you already have ie it is not credit.
If you are a victim of fraud on a CC it is "credit and comes with high interest rates. Even if you manage to convince the card company that it is a fr?ud it can take months to resolve. This will appear on your credit report as a borrowing unless the CC company agrees to remove it pending investigation.
If you are applying for a loan or mortgage it could be a problem. In my case I had a fraud under investigation for 9 months for over 40,000 US dollars,Not here in the DR admittedly.
I like the idea of the Cards you can load with money instead of travellers cheques as a better and safer way to travel too.

Skippy1

Hi Skippy,

Apologies, I didn't realise you meant it in the "credit v debit" sense and thought you meant plastic in general.

Personally, I think that I would rather have my credit card defrauded - at least it is someone elses money - I am not wealthy enough to have any spare to lose and then have to wait for it to be refunded. The charges on dishonoured direct debits and standing orders would be very high if there wasn't the funds to cover them.

Just my opinion - from an impoverished poster!

Rio

 

[Skippy1]

Impoverished

:ermm:

Hi Skippy,

Apologies, I didn't realise you meant it in the "credit v debit" sense and thought you meant plastic in general.

Personally, I think that I would rather have my credit card defrauded - at least it is someone elses money - I am not wealthy enough to have any spare to lose and then have to wait for it to be refunded. The charges on dishonoured direct debits and standing orders would be very high if there wasn't the funds to cover them.

Just my opinion - from an impoverished poster!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember my impoverished days .......like they were yesterday! hold on they were yesterday...lol

What you say is ok if you can convince them it is a fraud. For example if you pay for a meal with your card and then one week later a similar payment is taken on the card while you are still in the country it can be difficult to prove its a fraud. In this case you will end up having to pay and interest if it takes you over your limit or you do not pay the balance within 30 days. My case was supposedly easy to prove it was a fraud as it was someone buying air tickets all over the world. My problem was I had been travelling for 6 months around the world so it was hard to say which were real and which were frauds. I had to submit my passport and give complete details of everything I did for 6 months. Some were easy as its not possible to be in two places at once. It took a long time and the bank would not take the debt off my account and continued to charge interest until the day it was finally cleared.
Please dont think faud is a victimless crime either it cost someone somewhere no such thing as victimless crime. hope you never have this problem anyway take care and good luck
Skippy1

 

[Kaizen68]

credit card fraud - identity theft

Consider this a ?heads up? to those of us who travel abroad, and/or use our cc to buy on line etc. Just yesterday, I had an individual approach me if I was interested in buying 50 hard copies of peoples information, containing every vital information to make a new identity etc. I got a close look at the documents, and it seems that some unscrupulous employee(s) of contact centers located in the Santo Domingos area (this particular one in pharmaceutical telemarketing) obtains people?s info upon making a sale, prints out a copy of the crt info, and VOILA! you have just been scheistered...

From what this peddler told me, 50 of these will cost you 2k dop; and the freaky part is that he sells it to folks who purchase over the internet, and have it delivered to a p.o. box, or a bogus address. I advise those of us who are avid readers to obtain a copy of Frank Abagnale?s book entitled:
THE ART OF THE STEAL (and if you saw or didn?t see the movie with Leo Dicrapio and Tom Hanks. Catch me if you can, the book with the same name).
This individual even had mailing lists of names, phone numbers and addresses of people in the US that have purchased medicines through the net. If anyone cares to elaborate on this topic, Pease, feel free.

 

[Ezequiel]

Yes, credit card fraud is a problem in most of Latin America, but it is particulary rampant in the DR. In all my trips, I have used my credit card exactly one time. (at an international hotel chain in Santo Domingo.) The transaction went through, but after I used it, my credit card company put a security block on my card simply because a transaction was made in the Dominican Republic. I didn't realize it until I was back in the States and I tried to use the card and it was rejected. I was told it is their policy to put a security block on cards when transactions appear from the DR.

I would never use a credit card there, except in an absoulte emergency where I had no other option, and I very rarely (if ever) use an ATM there. When I do, it's located right at the bank and during opening hours.

All this is just PARANOIA, everytime i go to the DR i used my credit card, as if i'm here in the U.S. and nothing happened, nor the bank put a stop to my transaction.

My friend whose live in {{Arizona}} had a charge of 10,000 on his credit card he didn't know from where that charge came from, and cost him time and money to fixed it.

I was in Italy (Venice) the last week of May, and my credit card was cancelled by the bank for NO reason, it took me a couple of our in the phone and a long distance charge to fixed it.

But of course Americans and foreigners as a whole, if the problem is the size of an Ant they put it the size of an Elephant, just because it happened in the DR. If it happened in the U.S. is fine, Right?

 

[Lapurr]

All this is just PARANOIA, everytime i go to the DR i used my credit card, as if i'm here in the U.S. and nothing happened, nor the bank put a stop to my transaction.

My friend whose live in {{Arizona}} had a charge of 10,000 on his credit card he didn't know from where that charge came from, and cost him time and money to fixed it.

I was in Italy (Venice) the last week of May, and my credit card was cancelled by the bank for NO reason, it took me a couple of our in the phone and a long distance charge to fixed it.

But of course Americans and foreigners as a whole, if the problem is the size of an Ant they put it the size of an Elephant, just because it happened in the DR. If it happened in the U.S. is fine, Right?

No it is not fine, it shouldn't happen anywhere, but crime is on the rise, and this is terrifying, identity theft is intrusive and hijacking the identity of another person or business is gaining as technology advances. Criminals are getting much smarter these days!!

I know you will all think I am crazy, I never travel with credit cards, infact I don't have any...I have store credit cards, and now have started to use pre paid cards, with amounts no larger than $500, it's just too risky.

I bring cash, I don't carry it around with me and I certainly do not flash it, but I have had a bad experience in DR with debit and ever since then I don't use debit either.

 

[Ezequiel]

No it is not fine, it shouldn't happen anywhere, but crime is on the rise, and this is terrifying, identity theft is intrusive and hijacking the identity of another person or business is gaining as technology advances. Criminals are getting much smarter these days!!

I know you will all think I am crazy, I never travel with credit cards, infact I don't have any...I have store credit cards, and now have started to use pre paid cards, with amounts no larger than $500, it's just too risky.

I bring cash, I don't carry it around with me and I certainly do not flash it, but I have had a bad experience in DR with debit and ever since then I don't use debit either.

I'm the opposite, i don't carry cash, i only use debit and credit cards, i don't go to places that don't accept debit or credit cards. If somebody is going to steal your identity, they will steal there in DR, here in U.S.(it happened to thousand of people every year here) and in China.

Likewise i make all my bill payments online, never have a problem and pray God never will, but i have friends that they are terrified about making payment online (paranoic). I can't live my life being afraid about every single thing.

 

[xamaicano]

I can't live my life being afraid about every single thing.

No need to be paranoid just use the necessary precautions. I have had fraud on my debit card in the U.S. and in Colombia. My debit card comes with fraud protection. A good idea is to notify your bank when you will be out of country when you travel and monitor your account regularly so if there is any fraud you catch it quickly to mitigate the damage.

 

[Bronxboy]

I'm the opposite, i don't carry cash, i only use debit and credit cards,

My personal opinion is this is the way to go!!!!!

 

[Ezequiel]

No need to be paranoid just use the necessary precautions. I have had fraud on my debit card in the U.S. and in Colombia. My debit card comes with fraud protection. A good idea is to notify your bank when you will be out of country when you travel and monitor your account regularly so if there is any fraud you catch it quickly to mitigate the damage.

Thank you xamaicano, every credit and debit card nowaday have fraud protection, but it seems some posters here are using (cuquica) banks and they don't have fraud protection.

 

[on the road again]

caveat emptor

Not posting to advocate either credit card, debit card, or cash, as it may well depend on where and how someone is living.

I thought though it worth mentioning my recent experience here. Our Visa card was recently blocked by our Canadian bank because a duplicate of it had been discovered during a police investigation overseas.

By a strange coincidence, an acquaintance, another contractor who we met while we were still settling into Santo Domingo and staying in a hotel here, had his debit card duplicated and used in the UK. He's from Eastern Europe, hasn't been to the UK in years, and has very rarely and cautiously used his debit card here. Both incidents happened in the last 10 days. (We're still puzzling over the connection, if there is one. The hotel's ATM?)

Clearly, whatever scam seems to be making use of security holes in DR financial systems, but it seems to me to be international in scope, with the DR just one link in a nasty chain.

The fellow whose debit card was falsely debited is having to jump through major bureaucratic hoops to get credited, whereas in our case, Visa was very prompt to protect us, and getting new cards and verifying all recent transactions took place with a collect call.

The only words of dubious wisdom I have to add are if you're using cards while travelling, it's worthwhile finding out before you arrive in a foreign country how to make a collect call to your credit company.

cheers.

 

[sheller]

Just recently I have had three credit card issues all stemming from gas stations in santo domingo and Juan dolio. Some with in 2 days of the original transaction a card was present and swipped in Miami and Chicago.

 

[sylindr]

stolen credit card number

just returned from dr and at some point had my information stolen. Just had my credit card company call me about a bunch of purchases in Japan. I am Canadian and have not been near there. I will not have to pay these bills but it was caught because i had charges one day in DR and the next in Japan. It is good they monitor patterns, I also check once a week all charges on my card to help this also

 

[Charlielyn]

There seems to be an international visa card fraud ring working out of the DR. I am amazed at all the stories everyone has recounted here. After my experience in April, I did not use my visa card when in Puerto Plata again in June. In October I will use cash as much as possible again. It is not worth the hassle.

 

[drloca]

Have never experienced any problems thankfully...I have used it from time to time in Jose Luis, nowhere else that I can recall.