Yesterday, I wrote a tip about how not to get scammed by bad guys. Well, wouldn’t you know it … the bad guys must get my newsletter because they just tried to possibly scam me!

For the second day in a row, I woke up to a text message from a credit card company alerting me of a charge to Nordstrom Direct #8. It turns out yesterday, someone charged $459 to my Chase card. After confirming with my wife that the purchase wasn’t from her, I tried calling Chase and the wait time was so long I had to hang up. Shockingly, they don’t have a callback option, which is absurd in this day and age. I don’t mind waiting three hours for a call but I’m certainly not going to wait on hold

I have so much going on that I forgot about that charge until this morning when I woke up to another text, this time from American Express, asking if I’d made a $538 purchase from Nordstrom Direct. I replied via option 2, which was to call Amex. An 800 number popped up and asked me to enter the last four digits of my social. I got nervous, hung up and then Googled Amex’s number myself to make sure it was legit and not the scammers.

I only had to wait five minutes for Amex to get a representative (based in the Philippines), which is still too long but way better than Chase’s wait time. I was on the phone for almost 30 minutes, which is ridiculous but they had to verify everything and they’re sending me a new card and number.

The most disturbing thing is that I don’t know how they got my card numbers. The Amex agent said the charge took place in Seattle and I haven’t been there in years. I only keep my Amex in my travel bag and haven’t traveled in a week. So I’m perplexed.

Thankfully, I have alerts set up for all purchases so I can take immediate action and they’re credit cards so I’m protected but it’s still upsetting. KEEP READING: Here’s another example of a scam that you don’t want to fall for, plus tips so you know what to do if it happens to you.

4 Comments On "Someone Just Tried Charging $500 to Nordstrom on Two of My Credit Cards"
  1. Jerry Michels|

    Wouldn’t the long wait times be due to the increase of nastiness this time of the year? Jerry Michels

  2. anonymous|

    Maybe some business where you’ve shopped with those cards had a data breach.

    The “Have I Been Pwned” website, run by well-known Australian security researcher Troy Hunt, has a tool to check your email addresses against a massive database of known breaches of companies that may never have informed their customers. I found one of my email addresses in four data breaches that I was totally unaware of…which explains all the phishing attempts I’m constantly getting.

    It’s also important to make sure your mobile carrier has good account security in place, e.g. use of an authentication app, or private account PIN, etc. If your mobile account gets hijacked, criminals can take over any account you use for SMS verification by pretending to be you.

  3. JoAnn|

    I had a similar thing happen in October. We were in Scottsdale, and my Dillard’s card was used at a Dillard’s in Chandler for over $3000, mostly Ugg boots and a coat, after we left AZ. We returned home, and two weeks later I got an alert that I had $30 in Macy’s money, but I hadn’t shopped at Macy’s. I checked my Macy’s card and there were $600 in charges for Ugg boots. Both cards were used in store and my cards never left me, which was the odd part. It appears that the crook had my SS number and added himself to my account! He was able to walk out of the store with his purchases. I put a freeze on my credit with all three credit bureaus since this guy has too much info. The new card Dillard’s sent me was in the crooks name! Got that fixed but what a nightmare. A few weeks later, I got a letter from a bank confirming the account I opened…which I didn’t. They didn’t process the new account because of the freeze from the credit bureau.

  4. Sandy M.|

    You can get a financial institution mobile app to lock your credit cards (on most bank issued cards) on your phone. When you want to make a purchase, unlock the card (only takes a few seconds on line), make the purchase, lock the card again. It’s very quick and avoids having to get a new card every time someone else scams you.

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