lesson learned… the hard way…
I have a credit card with Target that, at one time was strictly a Target department store card… It eventually was converted to a Visa card.
We don’t use it very often, and I pay the bill online, so I don’t check the statement as much as I should.
Big mistake.
I discovered a recurring charge for Auctionwatch.com (now Vendio), and looked into it. I didn’t recall signing up for their services. I looked back through all of my e-mail over the last four months, and couldn’t find any “welcome to Vendio” or e-mails of the like. The first charge was on February 21st. (this was the week before our wedding, so anything to do with auctions was the last thing on my mind!)
I contacted Vendio on Sunday, letting them know I needed their help determining whether I had an account with them and just didn’t remember the login information, or if it was an unauthorized account… I had to leave voice mail since they’re only open Monday through Friday.
Someone returned my call today. Prompted by my call, they had determined that the account was unauthorized and had shut it off. I was told in order to dispute the charges I would need to contact my credit card company, who would in turn contact them to dispute the charges.
So I called Target. Their policy is to dispute up to 90 days of unauthorized charges. Which means I’m stuck with the first charge of $50.94, because I was stupid and didn’t check my statements for accuracy (either online or the paper version). Dammit. That’ll learn me!
My only hope is that the people at Vendio will refund that last charge, but I don’t think they’ll even do so since it’s been so long. Grrr.
I’m not even sure how someone got ahold of the card number, the only place we’ve used it online has been at Circuit City, and that was to do their “in-store pickup” ordering… AND, that was waaaay back in 2002. Otherwise, charges have been few & far between, and all local.
Fuh. I’m contemplating cancelling the card altogether. There’s only about $850 on it, and I planned on getting it paid off in a couple of months anyway… may as well kill it off and be done with it. It has a shitty APR, anyway.
Fortunately it seems to be the only card this is happening to.. the others, which consist of either department store credit cards (two out of four have a balance), and then our check cards & platinum cards, are ok…
I’m thinking about going part-way through the signup process at Vendio just to see what kind of information they ask for when someone signs up for an account. I’d like to know what kind of verification process those nutjobs have on their site… This really shouldn’t have happened.
Anyway, don’t find out the hard way like I did that unauthorized charges are being made on one of your credit cards. Don’t be stupid like I was. [/hangs head in shame]
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