Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Virtual Credit Cards FTW - Update at the End

 

I'm a HUGE fan of virtual credit cards. Seriously huge. Having credit cards that are tied to a single vendor and can be locked are a wonderful security feature for online shopping. There's been way too many data breaches and there's always going to be more.

This is the second time in a week that I've had attempted fraud on my credit card account. I'm pretty sure I know where it's coming from and that it will stop now that the new charge has been declined. Why was it declined? Because I wasn't sure the vendor was on the up and up but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt because I could risk the $5. After the charge I immediately locked the card.

Lo and behold guess who tried to charge me for something else and it was more than $5 this time.

My credit card company asked about the declined charge, I confirmed it was unauthorized, they're sending me yet another new card. So I'm without a credit card for a few days again. I can use my debit card (as a credit card) for local in-person purchases until it shows up.

I'm officially done with the vendors who make me question if they're using the initial cheap thing they deliver in order to charge something more expensive later. I know the answer to that one.

People might try to quibble about it being fraud since I gave them my credit card number. They'd be wrong. I did not authorize the second charge. If they had asked and I agreed then I could have unlocked it for the purchase and everything would be fine. They didn't ask. I didn't agree. That makes it fraud.

I did authorize the initial purchase. After all, I created a virtual card for them. So that little bit of money is gone. I don't know what it was supposed to be so unless it shows up in my mailbox I'm writing it off. And I'm done with playing with sketchy vendors.

If your credit card company offers virtual cards then I highly suggest you start using them. There's a few real vendors out there who aren't set up to take them. Some even say that on the checkout page. But most do and that gives you another level of control. Even if you leave the card unlocked and someone other than that vendor tries to charge it, it gets declined.

If your credit card company doesn't offer virtual cards ask when they will. If they won't and you don't have a good reason to stay with them switch to a company that does. My credit card company has been excellent about catching fraud. I think this is the third fraud attempt in over a decade and honestly I invited them by where I online shopped. 

The first recent one is kind of odd since they didn't have a virtual number and almost no one has my real card number. I did do a bunch of local shopping the day they said the charge was made. It could be coincidence or I could have gotten skimmed. Either way my company caught it. I need to think about where I shopped that I hadn't shopped before. Just having the chip cards isn't enough anymore it seems.

I'll end this one with a reminder to look into virtual credit cards. My company upgraded so that you can create them when you want them and use them for a single vendor. I'm guessing the first charge locks them to it. This is handy for things where you don't buy online - like the food delivery apps.

The only thing that's missing is something my previous credit card company had - the ability to set a dollar limit on what could be charged to the card. That was another level of protection but I can see where there would be a lot of false positives when someone set the level too low, bought something, then it got declined. There's always a tradeoff.

Now I'm hesitant about using my debit card in person, once I think about it. If for some reason I got skimmed locally they'll have my debit card and that would be bad. I'm pondering if I can wait to go shopping until I get my new credit card. I had a whole list of errands I had planned for today and they all involved buying things. Maybe it's worth the wait for the new card, just to make sure that I'm covered.

Credit card fraud is annoying and inconvenient. Please make sure you're adequately covered.

UPDATE

I called my credit card company rather than reply to the 'did you make this' text/email. I didn't want them to cancel the new credit card they issued and I hadn't even received yet since this was a vendor using a virtual card.

After some back and forth and me saying the same thing about seven different ways I got confirmation that by deleting the virtual card any attempts to charge it in the future would come back declined saying the card didn't exist. I was concerned that for whatever reason the credit card company would roll an attempted charge on a deleted virtual charge up to the main card and honor it. Which seems stupid but it is a credit card company.

I'm 97.2390875% sure that it's not going to happen. I think I'm done with fraud charges from this vendor. We'll see in the next week.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

No ReaperCon for Me


Alas life decided that I wasn't going to ReaperCon this year. Not only was it the first year I was going to teach it was going to be my last year attending.

Short version on why I didn't go. Changing my driver's license to my new state resulted in getting a paper temporary one TSA won't accept as identification and then credit card fraud required I get a replacement card. Both of these happened less than a week before the trip. With no TSA valid ID and no credit card flying and renting a car wasn't going to happen.

Why was this going to be my last year? Good question. I'd been enjoying this convention since 2005 (artist con that year but still) but things change. My interests have changed. My painting level and direction have changed. The convention has changed. All those changes combined means this isn't a convention for me.

Conventions are expensive. Travel, hotel, tickets, classes, meals. It adds up quickly. Weighing that against what I got from the convention started tilting the scales in the wrong direction. That's not to say ReaperCon isn't fun. A whole lot of people have fun. I'm just not one of them anymore.

I missed seeing the few people I know. I missed seeing the artists I know. I missed getting to teach my class. I missed the fun classes I chose to take as my final ones. I missed some of the regional restaurants. I missed them more because I knew I wouldn't experience all that again.

I wish I'd taken many, many more pictures of those early years. I tried but it never really happened. They've long ago been scrubbed from the Reaper website in updates and changes. I'll rely on my memories and let them rose color the whole thing.

ReaperCon was the last convention I'd been attending. The ones that were local to me either changed direction away from what interested me or failed. GenCon was always a shopping trip and I don't need to shop anymore. I don't know that there's local conventions where I am but we'll see. I'm not holding out hope and none of the other conventions around the country had interested me enough to consider going. At least not in the last decade or so.

Fifteen conventions and at least two artist conventions later it's time to let this one go.