Community
A thief hacked into a woman’s checking account and used her daughter’s name on an electronic check to pay for an online porn subscription. The FBI believes this is a relatively new scam, with reports coming in from across the country.
The little girl isn’t a signer on the account, but the bank cashed the check for $29.95 made out to a porn company in her name.
“Somebody took money from me, somebody took my account number, somebody used my daughter’s name for porn,” the mother says.
According to the Colorado Banker’s Association, “any company you send a check to has enough information to steal from you… Online bill pay isn’t any safer because criminals have been known to hack into computers.”
That’s a serious statement from a bank representative. I can’t help but wonder if it was translated correctly? She went on to note that many checks were being cashed for small amounts, which doesn’t send a red flag to banks.
Consumers often overlook these smaller transactions, or “microcharges,” which are fraudulent charges ranging from 20 cents to $10. The victims of this particular scam would see the fictional merchant’s name and toll-free number on their debit or credit card statements. If they called to dispute a charge, the phone numbers would be disconnected or go straight to voicemail. Many frustrated consumers don’t even bother to dispute the charges.
This scam can often be fixed by paying attention to your statements and refuting charges within a specified time frame. You have up to 60 days, at most, depending on the nature of the card. Check with your bank.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Sergiy Fitsak Managing Director, Fintech Expert at Softjourn
14 August
Oleksandr Strozhemin Co-founder and CEO at Trinetix
13 August
Elaine Mullan Head of Marketing and Business Development at Corlytics
12 August
Abhinav Paliwal CEO at PayNet Systems- A Neo Banking Software Platform
Welcome to Finextra. We use cookies to help us to deliver our services. You may change your preferences at our Cookie Centre.
Please read our Privacy Policy.