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Category: finances

DRI*CCNOW.COM*A.FLOWER Investigation

Published August 16, 2010

A few months back a bunch of unauthorized charges appeared on my credit card resulting in my receiving a new card and having to dispute a bunch of transactions as fraudulent. One of these, listed as DRI*CCNOW.COM*A.FLOWER, billed via CCNow, had information sent back from the processor resulting in me having to affirm that I did not make these charge for a 4.4L rice cooker. Specifically, this rice cooker, from http://www.amchiemumbai.com/electrical.htm (PNG mirror).

Specifically, I had to affirm that:

In addition, you have further stated that you are not affiliated with any of the information on the merchant’s rebuttal, as you did not order 4.4 Ltrs Rice Cooker from National online. Furthermore you also have stated that you are not affiliated with Sameer N Punnyai, the e-mail address: indiaflowerplaza@yahoo.com and vigneau.steve@yahoo.com and you did not authorize shipment to Rachana Apt No. 241 Al Surendra Nagar Nagpur Maharashtra, India 440015 with Tracking Number 190955283. You also have advised us that you did not give this merchant your name or address for any such charge.

Along with this I received a faxed screenshot (seen above or full res here) apparently from CCNow’s administrative interface, showing that they processed a charge on my card, despite:

· It being a US credit card.
· Shipping going to India.
· The order coming from India, IP address 210.212.179.136, which they know to be an Indian ISP.
· A phone number of (989) 074-8588, which isn’t a valid number.

I’m not sure what about this transaction looked to CCNow as something that they should have allowed to go through.

Oh, and that vigneau.steve@yahoo.com email address? That’s not me either, but it’s interesting to see. An in-person transaction would only use my full name (as taken from the card) but I’ll commonly have things shipped to “Steve”, so this pretty much guarantees that the info was acquired from somewhere online.

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Stuff For Sale: Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er and Wet Saw

Published August 10, 2010

I have some things for sale. Anyone want to buy them?

The first is the wet saw seen above, which I used to tile my kitchen, laundry room, and foyer. I no longer need it, so I’d like to sell it. Asking price is US$30.

One is my sister’s Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er, size 17.5″ / medium. Asking price is US$1000 or best offer. It’s barely used, and has seen very little time on trails since she has found that she prefers road biking. Please check out this post on the MMBA Forum for more details and photos.

UPDATE: Both items have sold.

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The REI Garage Sale Is Great

Published July 3, 2010

Today after getting Danielle fit on her bike by Ernie up at Cycletherepy (which went very well and is highly recommended) we swung by REI to pick up some stuff and check out the remains of the Garage Sale†. While there I picked up a returned Cateye Velo 5 computer labeled “Computer is not working” for $1.93, marked down from the original $20. Looking it over, the only thing wrong with it was that the original buyer had pushed the rubber MODE switch on the back in so far that it was jammed, causing the computer to not function. A few quick pokes with a pin to move the rubber switch back to the hole and everything was back to normal.

I also grabbed a jacket for $29-ish which had been returned because part of the collar was beginning to pill. Marked down from $100, nice looking, and something that I’d considered purchasing at full price last winter I couldn’t pass it up. It should make a very nice early winter / springtime jacket, and maybe something nice for XC skiing.

† In case you haven’t been to one, garage sales at REI are periodic clearance sales where non-new returned items are sold at huge discounts as non-returnable. Everything is tagged with the reason for return and the age of the item, and prices are typically an order of magnitude below the original price.

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More Unauthorized Transactions

Published May 25, 2010

Here we go again: more unauthorized transactions on my HSBC credit card. This time the unrecognized charges include:

· ClickBank
· peopleperhour.com
· ccnow
· Amazon Payments
· iTunes.com

These are all telltale signs of people using a stolen CC to get money. I suspect iTunes is used to check if the card is active (by signing up for an account with it) and then the others are used to actually bill the card.

I guess it’s time to get a new credit card and number. Again. (I do wonder if this has something to do with the unexpected preauth-that-never-billed from Black Singles two and a half months ago.

UPDATE: New card issued. Yay. Time to change all my autobilling transactions.

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Black Singles?!?

Published March 7, 2010

There is an unexpected preauthorization for $14.99 from Black Singles on my HSBC credit card. It was just over a year ago that there were other unexpected charges on this card resulting in it being cancelled and a new number issued. I’ll be calling HSBC in the morning.

At least this time it didn’t happen just as I was leaving on vacation.

UPDATE: HSBC is waiting until the charge posts or not. This worries me slightly, as a preauth shouldn’t happen without card number and expiration date, which is a mighty hard combination to guess.

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I Love Michigan’s Scanner Law

Published October 27, 2009

I love what is known as Michigan’s Scanner Law. In short, this law states that if one is charged more than the stickered price for an item rung up via a computer scanning a bar code, one is legally eligable to be refunded the overcharged amount plus ten times the overcharged amount, with a cap of $5 on this surplus. In this case I went in to Office Max to check the price on a Logitech LX8 mouse. It was marked as $29.99, so I purchased it. As expected, it rang up for the normal price of $39.99 and the cashier didn’t notice the stickered price.

After a quick walk out of the store then back in I returned to the cashier and asked her about the difference, which she promptly refunded. I had to remind her about the aforementioned Michigan Scanner Law, but doing so resulted in a manager being called over and my receiving an extra $5 cash. Thus, what’s normally a $39.99 MSRP mouse ($49.99 at Office Depot) was obtained for $26.79.

The last time I took advantage of this I obtained a large quantity of 2GB SD (20 or so) cards from Micro Center, most of which were marked $5.99. I was charged $6.99 per card, and upon visiting the customer service desk I was refunded $1/card. When I reminded the cashier of the scanner law she simply re-rang all the cards at $1.99/ea, essentially a $5 penalty per item. When multiple items have their price adjusted the store must correct the price on all and refund the difference, but they are only obligated to pay the 10x penalty once, but if Micro Center wanted to do otherwise, I was not going to go out of my way to correct them.

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Fifth Third Bank’s Payday Loan Business (aka Early Access)

Published July 29, 2009

Today when signing into Fifth Third’s website to check my bank account, I saw a link which would allow me to sign up for a new service called Early Access. Not knowing what this is I clicked on the link, only to see that Early Access is nothing more than easy-to-use payday advance lending. More information is available about it on this page, but I think it’s particularly telling that the bank specifically states in the disclosures section that:

Fifth Third Early Access is an expensive form of credit and should only be used in situations where you need funds quickly and you do not have access to less expensive forms of credit.

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Bike Nashbar Was Hacked, Vulnerable for 2-3 Months

Published July 7, 2009

While at lunch a few minutes ago I received a call from bike nashbar informing me that they had a data breech and that they wanted to inform me of it. They answered my questions and indicated that it was a credit card processing breech, and that it happened at the end of December, 2008 and the hole was closed in early March, 2009. This means that any credit card transactions made during this 2-3 month period were potentially subject to interception.

The calling then confirmed the last four digits of the card I had used there, which also just happens to be the credit card of mine which was compromised in February of this year. I can’t help but feel that the two are closely related.

Poking around a bit online showed a few other sites (1 · 2 · 3) confirming this.

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-5% + -10% = -14.5%

Published March 16, 2009

Since The Reg has now posted about it, I think I can discuss it publicly: Back on 18-Feb, right before taking off on vacation, I was informed that I’d be receiving a 5% pay cut. This isn’t terrible, and I’d rather have a job than less pay.

However, last Friday I was informed that my salary will be cut by an additional 10% for the month of April. This brings my total pay cut to 14.5% from a few months ago. While this won’t cause the world to come crashing down and isn’t terribly drastically life changing, it does mean that I’ll be saving less, likely won’t be taking any far-away vacations this year, and will need to re-balance (and drastically reassess) a number of financial things.

It’s an understatement to say that this is a little frustrating.

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