Augh, someone just stole your credit card. Now what? Well this happened to me recently. Just when I said nothing much happens with my credit card, somebody goes ahead and steals my credit card! But perhaps “stealing” is the wrong word to use in this situation, so let me clarify. Then I'll cover the steps you should take if someone stole your credit card down below.
The last place I used my credit card was at the local Kelly Moore paint store. I remember taking it out, but not taking it back before I left.
And, I remember the clerk who swiped my card for $43 for a gallon of hybrid paint. Yet, when I called back a day later to see if they had my card, the clerk said “no.”
It Sucks When Someone Stole Your Credit Card
Then I went back to the store the next day to ask the employees face-to-face if anybody saw my card. I can usually tell if someone is lying if I look them straight in the eye and ask them an important question.
The manager on duty, whom I've seen the last four out of five times I've gone, hesitated and blurted out “nobody has told me about a missing credit card” before I finished asking my question. It was as if he already knew what I was going to ask. Hmmm.
I gave him my contact details in case anybody finds anything, and told him that someone took the card and went across the Bay to a Berkeley gas station and charged it up. The only way you can charge a credit card for gas is if you put in the credit card holder's zip code.
Given my zip code is the same zip code as the paint store, and the paint store was the last place I used the card, chances are high that one of the employees decided to keep my card and use it without my permission. (Thought: Perhaps change your credit card billing address to your work address so the zip codes are different)
Suspicious Persons
It really stinks feeling suspicious of others. Everybody but one person in the store is innocent. Unfortunately, I no longer feel comfortable going there anymore.
When I was paying at the register one visit, one of the clerks asked me about the Frog Tape I was buying. “Hey, you trying to paint a straight line, or something?”
“Yeah, the line where the wall meets the trim,” I responded.
“I got a secret on how to paint a straight line real easy,” he said. “But it'll cost you 5 bucks.”
I laughed, thinking he was joking as I admired his tattoos of serpent heads. I waited for him to tell me the secret, but he never did! WTF. I can appreciate a good hustle, but trying to personally extract another $5 after I've already spent $600 at the store is low quality.
Five Steps To Take If Your Credit Card Is Stolen
1) Don't panic
If your entire wallet is stolen (one of the worst feelings ever), then panic! It's really the process of having to get a new driver's license and any other government-issued card that is the real PITA. But if only a credit card is stolen, no problem! I love credit cards because practically every single credit card has fraud protection.
2) Give your credit card company a ring
Simply give your credit card company a call, tell them your card was stolen, and they will reverse the fraudulent charges, cancel your card, and issue you a new one in the mail. If you've got any history with the credit card, you can call for rush delivery, free of charge. Otherwise, it generally takes 5-7 business days to get a new card. Use this time to practice consumption restraint and pay for only things in cash. It'll be good for you.
3) Ask your credit card company for info and concessions
You might as well use the time when canceling to ask them whether they can lower your interest rate, raise your credit limit (if necessary), and remind you of their insurance program and other perks the credit card offers.
When a customer loses a credit card, credit card companies know this is a sensitive and critical time for them to show good service. It's also a critical time when customers tend to leave. Be assertive in your demands for concessions.
4) Shop around for another credit card
If you are not completely satisfied with the rate and services your existing credit card provides, shop around for a different credit card. If your credit card company is unhelpful during your loss and won't credit back any charges, then definitely say goodbye.
There are literally thousands of credit cards to choose from. A cash back rewards credit card is definitely a must. Given I travel about 10 weeks a year, a travel credit card is a no brainer for me.
5) Contact all vendors who use your card for auto-pay
List out vendors where they have your credit card on file. If you can't remember, peruse through your e-mails to jog your memory. I'm lucky in that I only have my Netflix account and my insurance account.
Some people I know have 10+ accounts on autopay, which is smart until you have to change your card. A good way to hedge against such an event is to spread around two or more cards around your vendors.
The Upside Of Changing Your Credit Card
Every time I go through this process of changing my credit card I look on the bright side of the hassle. A new credit card on file means that anybody close to hacking your credit card info has to start all over. We're essentially making it difficult for other people to steal from us online.
It would be nice if credit card companies automatically changed our credit card numbers once a year and vendors automatically updated our accounts with the new numbers. But, the next best thing is to do it ourselves. We should never fear losing money with a credit card given the safeguards they have in place.
Recommendation To Build Wealth
Manage Your Money In One Place: Sign up for Personal Capital, the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your finances.
You can use Personal Capital to help monitor illegal use of your credit cards and other accounts with their tracking software.
In addition to better money oversight, run your investments through their award-winning Investment Checkup tool to see exactly how much you are paying in fees. I was paying $1,700 a year in fees I had no idea I was paying.
After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator that pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible using Monte Carlo simulation algorithms.
Definitely run your numbers to see how you’re doing. I’ve been using Personal Capital since 2012 and have seen my net worth skyrocket during this time thanks to better money management.
Got a call from CitiBank at 5am San Diego time on Monday asking if I had just spent $3201 on Wal Mart.com. As soon as I replied no, they went through my last few days of charges with me, and closed the account. By Tuesday at 10am I had a new credit card being dropped off via FedEx. (Probably helps I put over 40k in spending on it last year, including part of my wedding and the honneymoon).
They handled it great, but I did have to spend some time changing all my Auto Pays.
They suspect it was a store compromise (no I don’t shop at Target) or from a gas station possibly.
I just went through this exact thing. I used my card at a restaurant, couldn’t find it later, suspected I had left it there, called them and they said no, so got on my bank’s website and cancelled and ordered a new one.
It is my best cash rewards card, so I have it tied to quite a few accounts that I’ve also had to switch over to a new account.
I need to start thinking of the stuff that I do in life as possible topics for blogging…
That’s ridiculous to ask for $5 for a painting tip. I hope if you ever learn what that painting tip is you share it with us all.
Man, I’d be more upset on the lack of professionalism from the clerk rather than one of them taking my card! Yeah, I’d probably skip that paint store next time all together too.
My wife’s purse was stolen years ago at work. The credit card was used at a hair salon. I reported it to the credit card company and they didn’t care. They just charged it back to the store. I think it is the easy way out for them and it wasn’t worth their time. My wife was sure who did it, but no one wanted to pursue it. There was a lot of inconvenience replacing the driver license and of course the value of the wallet, purse, etc.
I always keep my wallet out until I get my card back to avoid these situations.
How about confront the person your wife thinks who stole it?
Off topic, but with the S&P closing above 2,000, what are people thinking? I took some money off the table today in my retirement account. I haven’t rebalanced in a while, so thought it was a good time to do so, but shifted a little more into cash than I have allocated. If there is a downturn, I’ll have some to reinvest. If not, it will slowly be reduced as a percentage of portfolio.
Just wondering what others might be doing.
I guess I’m wondering what’s the big deal? If my credit card gets stolen, who cares? I’ll report it when I get around to it. I check my accounts with Mint every day but even if I didn’t I would just call my cc company when I realize it and they will immediately refund and rush me a new card.
Like you mention, if for some unknown reason you have a ton of auto-pays setup you can diversify among a few cards so that you’ll never have to change more than a couple.
PS – I need to apply for a few more cards actually, my fico is getting too high haha 799 :)
Because of the autopay, and the PITA factor.
Don’t you want to join the exclusive 800 credit score club?
No stolen credit card for me yet. However, I am sure I had a very close run in. A restaurant in my college town had their system hijacked some how and within a couple of weeks they had stolen several hundred credit card numbers (including several police officers!). Having heard about it the day after I went I immediately called my bank to reissue the card. Luckily they did so before there was any damage done on my end, but with the high rate of theft they were experiencing it was just a matter of time.
life hack: paint a crisp straight line – one way to do it is to lay the tape on the trim tight against the wall, and smear a thin layer of interior tile caulk on the tape along the wall side. Let the caulk dry, cut the line with a brush, and pull the tape. The caulk prevents the ‘seep’ under/through the edge of the tape, which makes the line a little less-than-crisp.
life hack 2: paint a patch of the new paint in the morning, so you can see it all day. That way if you want a change lighter or darker, you won’t have to repaint the whole wall. The paint doesn’t always look like the chip sample we see under fluorescent light in the paint store.
FS, sorry this happened with your credit card. People can be really disappointing. One thought (which may be a lot of work and not worth your while, now that the credit card company has made you whole) is to contact the Berkeley gas station. If it is a large-chain station, they will have video-surveillance of all the pumps, 1 frame every 8 seconds. If you can isolate the time and pump, you may be able to see the car and person. I don’t think this can be followed up by the cc company or law enforcement, but maybe you can hone your ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ skills; and it would make a great follow-up post.
I like #2. #1 sounds like a PITA!
B/c the charge was only for $40, I’m not going to put in the effort. But maybe I should for another post.
You are right, but you saved $5 and now know the ‘secret’ (I learned it from a dude at a hardware store, he is very generous with his time and knowledge, and the bit more I pay there is a fraction of the time and money he has saved me.) But for pro painters getting paid by the hour #1 is visibly better. Doing it myself, I don’t bother, either. Wait a minute…life hack: not all life hacks save you time or money
#2 is great, I learned that the hard way when a ‘Goldenrod’ custom in the store became a ‘Brown Mustard’ in the living room.
Completely understand letting this go. One thought is to e-mail Kelly Moore Customer Service, link this post (or cut-and-paste the story if you prefer to keep it personal). You better believe the story will get all the way back to the store, and let the employees and manager ponder on who the thief among them really is.
One more thought on the painting, those $17 foam rubber kneepads are well worth it.
Sam,
The last time my credit card was stolen was about 3 years ago. I was in Costa Rica and used it to charge a few hotel rooms over ten days. About a week after I got home, charges started showing up in the $10-$15 range, all at McDonald’s in Singapore! My guess is they were trying to spend amounts under a certain threshold to avoid flags and test it out. My card company didn’t flag it surprisingly, but luckily I saw it right away. Capital One quickly cancelled the card and sent me a new on without any problem.
-RBD
Very sneaky of them! How on earth does it go from Costa Rica to Singapore in a week?
Now I feel a large responsibility is on the vendors accepting these cards. Check ID vendors!
That sucks! That’s a great idea to have credit card companies update the numbers once a year, although to get vendors to cooperate would probably be a little more difficult. But I wonder how much the credit card companies would save in fraud protection by doing that.
Maybe a lot. A constantly change of numbers must reduce fraud. It’s a moving target that’s harder to hit.
I’m on of the suckers who has a ton of auto payments tied to one credit card. I lost mine earlier this year, replaced all of my auto pays, and then within a few weeks someone tried to buy $700 worth of groceries on my account in the middle of nowhere Ohio, so I had to cancel that card and get another new card and redo my auto pays all over again. Boy was I PO’d. Anyway, that’s done and dusted and hopefully won’t happen again for a while. But I agree with you it’s nice to flush out an old card number every now and then.
What a PITA! $700 worth of groceries… must be a lot of alcohol or something. How do these folks get our credit card numbers and have them go through, I wonder. I’m at the grocery store and it requires a signature, an ID, etc. I wonder if the clerk is in cahoots.
I lose my wallet once every few years. (Not smart I know.) The people that find my wallet seem to be the nicest and most honest people on earth because I always get it back intact.
Last time I lost my wallet was in the Detroit airport. I was doing my company expenses and just left it on the seat next to me when I left to board the plane. A few calls to the lost and found later and they sent me my wallet with the $100 I had in there. Thanks Good Samaritan, I will pay it forward.
I lost my card once – fell out of my overcoat and I had Acari stolen from my wallet at the gym once. Yes, I. Did NOT have a lock on my locker.
The card that was lost – $900 spent at a Hard Rock Cafe.
The card that was stolen, about $3,000 at a Sears.
Good news for me, I did not pay anything for these charges.
I just have a question of the credit card industry, why don’t you require that ID be shown when a purchase is over $100?
Both of these events happened over 10 years ago.
I must get 10 or so fraud alert calls from citibank every year and everyone is always a legiimate purchase at a store that I have shopped at in the past. What is up with that?????
$3,000 at Sears sounds like a party!
10 fraud alert calls a year sounds like an overkill. You buying lots random stuff?
I am so used to having our debit card having problems we completely stopped and went credit. Not worth the hassle or the small extra money from the credit union. Stolen credit card can get charges pulled off. Stolen cash….well good luck.
My stolen credit card numbers have purchased $9000 of merchandise from a billiards store in Texas and $3500 of merch from a store that sells Hawaiian shirts in California. Never had an actual card stolen though.
I recently read an article about how the pros spot liars written by an ex CIA agent. The response you got from the manager was a way of disassociating himself from the crime he likely had knowledge of. An honest person would have just said “No”. The author went on to say that you can never be certain of a lie without in depth analysis of a conversation. I wish I could provide a link to the article but u didn’t save it.
Hmm, that’s interesting. That could be the case on knowledge and disassociation. I guess I can be pretty intimidating when unhappy too, so maybe he was just nervous as my eyes pierced through his soul.
Sometimes when you are paying for something and having a conversation, you are on autopilot and can get sloppy i.e. forgetting to get your card back. This happens to me when I am rushed and thinking about so many other things I need to do. Consequently, I try to really concentrate during that time. Too bad that a dishonest employee took advantage. Frustrating that there are people like this. I don’t blame you for not wanting to go back to that store.
Slightly embarrassing but I’ve accidentally left my credit card at bars all throughout my 20’s. I’ve found cancelling them and getting a new one in the mail much easier and less shameful than looking for it at the scene of the crime haha.
I only take one credit card out with me at a time and leave the rest at home. Particularly anything I pay online bills with never leaves the house. This way if I lose a card all I need to do is have a 2 second phone call with the bank take another card from my house that’s lying around and I’m back in business good as new.
Hahaha, yeah, I’ve done that before. I always just call the next morning and ask to retrieve it. I only had once where someone racked like $20 more in drinks I didn’t pay on it. I decided not to dispute. Not a big deal. My fault for leaving it there.
When I start to piecemeal my wallet by taking only what I need, I tend to lose things in my pants. I’ll forget to put the items back into my wallet, and then when I leave w/ my wallet I’ll end up driving without an ID and credit card or something!
That seems very odd. I’m sorry that this happened to you! My credit card number was stolen the other day and it was a credit card I still had in my wallet and hadn’t used in months. Luckily, Chase caught the transaction quickly because it was used in New York at a camera store.
Yikes. So online theft yeah? That’s always disconcerting when a card is stolen even though it’s still in your wallet!
Sounds like you need a new paint store! The upside is a very good point. If Target gets hacked again, those hackers can have the old card info!
Jay
Have you thought about contacting the police? There are security cameras everywhere these days. If your cc was used at a gas station they likely have the person on tape committing the crime.
I thought of that too but AMEX informed me that that is something they will follow up with the gas station to provide evidence on who used the card and move from there.
If the charge was huge, and my credit card company didn’t credit back the erroneous charges or offer to help, I definitely would. But, all CC companies have pretty beefy anti-fraud departments.
I had my credit card stolen once and some charges were made, but I called the company and they cancelled it, sent me a new credit card, and gave me my money back while they investigated what happened. A few weeks later, they concluded that it was indeed stolen and no further moves had to be made on my part.
It really only takes a phone call. You just have to be aware of it missing before the thief could put too much money on the card.
Oh man, sorry to hear that. I’d probably never go back to that store if I had the same experience. I only have 2 credit cards so it’d be a huge deal if I lost one. I probably need to get a backup credit card.
Sorry to hear about your credit card loss. It’s just a big hassle more than anything. I lost my wallet with 3 credit cards, license, and about $100 bucks many years ago in a gym locker. Someone actually picked a master’s combo lock. The biggest hassle was to get the new cards and the license. I didn’t have any fraud charges since I called my credit card company immediately afterwards.
I’ve also forgotten my credit cards twice in two different restaurants, but luckily both times the restaurant managers held it for me when I called the next day to find out if I left it, so hopefully there are more honest people out there.
Wow, someone picked a lock? That’s nuts. Does the gym have an insurance to help you? I know they say they are not liable, but if their property gets broken into..
No, they didn’t offer much help. It happened in 24hr fitness in Mt View in 2007. I told the mgmt and they said they couldn’t really do much without witnesses and asked me to file a police report if I wanted. I decided it wasn’t worth it. I had cheap cell phone at the time and the crazy thing is they didn’t take that.
That’s absolutely awful that the manager seemed to know what was going on, and the employee asking for $5 sounds really shady. I would not be going back there, either. Thankfully I’ve never been in this situation, but it’s too common, and you offer some great tips that I wouldn’t have thought of in the moment!
Yeah, pretty darn shady. But, it makes for some fun writing material :)