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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I do some product reselling both to generate miles and points as well as a profit generator.  So I keep a pretty good eye on my online accounts.  This morning, when going through my email, I noticed an order from Walmart.com that I wasn’t expecting
walmart-fraud-one-order

Actually my first thought was that my wife had made this order without talking to me.  That seemed odd (normally we usually run anything over a few bucks with each other), but it has been on my list to buy the family a new computer and I’ve been slacking, so I thought maybe she finally got fed up with me! 😀

Then I saw the Colorado pickup address (I live in Ohio), and I thought it might have something to do with my in-laws, who live in Colorado and maybe with my wife’s birthday (which is upcoming).

Then I quickly realized it looked like fraud.  You can even see the pickup person and store listed! (I redacted the person’s actual name)

While I was still going through my email, 4 more fraudulent Walmart orders came in!

walmart-fraud-orders

Calling Walmart

I wasn’t surprised that it was all technology stuff that is probably a bit easier to resell.  I called Walmart and was able to cancel all 5 of the orders without a problem.  I was surprised that the “brilliant” criminal didn’t even try to change my Walmart.com password, since that would have made things a bit harder.

Checking with Amex too

Next was to check with American Express, because that was the card that was billed (it was saved into my account).  Sure enough, 5 pending charges were there.

walmart-fraud-amex

Given that those orders were canceled, I would not expect them to convert into actual charges, but if they did, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to get them removed.

Filing a police report?

The lady at Walmart customer service actually suggested I file a police report, though I’m not sure where I’d file it.  I’d have to call Colorado, right?  What I REALLY want to do is use my miles to fly out to Colorado, stake out the Walmart and when they come to pick up the fraudulent orders, ATTACK! 🙂

Anyways, it was a minor hassle to deal with this, but generally speaking I am actually not super concerned about fraud / identity theft, though maybe I’m just being naive?  I have had excellent luck working with banks and credit card companies when I see unauthorized charges.  I think one of the big keys is paying attention to your accounts and catching any unauthorized or fraudulent charges early.  In this case, I had one email when I woke up this morning (that must have been placed overnight), and then early this morning, when they saw nothing was done, they placed 4 more orders.  I’m sure if those had gone through they would have tried to hit it even harder.

Have you ever been hit by online fraud or identity theft?  What did you do to combat it?  Should I file a police report?


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