This morning after waking up I checked my email on my phone and found an authentic-looking fraud alert from HSBC, the bank which holds my most-used credit card. This informed me that HSBC believes one of the recent transactions on my account is fraudulent. I then tried to sign into HSBC’s online banking stuff, only to find my account disabled.
Calling HSBC I was informed that a merchant through which I used my credit card “approximately 18-20 months ago” reported to MasterCard a compromise, and my credit card info is now available publicly. This info was used by someone who manually keyed in a $4680.22 transaction at Tahitian Noni International (Wikipedia), a MLM shop out of Provo, UT. I also told that while they currently do not know which company was compromised, this information should be available to me upon the completion of MasterCard’s investigation.
Save for the fraud, this is just the system working as its supposed to. Unfortunately the timing is a little inconvenient. The charge has been delt with, and a new card with new account number and card and such is being sent to me. As I’m leaving for the San Francisco area this evening and now without the ability to use my ‘normal’ credit card, I’ll have to fall back on the backup one. This card doesn’t pay cash back, has a high interest rate, and generally doesn’t get much use. I probably should also call that card company and inform them that there will soon be charges coming from all over the country so that this one doesn’t get flagged / turned off. I guess this is why I carry two credit cards.