When I received a mysterious package from BOMC2, I just kind of chalked it up to some kind of marketing gimmick. When I want a book, my first stop is Half Price Books on Metcalf. If I can't find it there, I hit up Amazon.
But a book club? Hmmm, I don't think so. But feel free to send me a comp copy.
Like I said, I sort of dismissed the book as an unsolicited marketing ploy to try to get me to join the club, that is until a few days later when another mysterious package arrived for me.
This time, it contained a selection of Gevalia coffees along with a note reading "Here is your first order. Your credit card has been charged $9.95. We hope you enjoy this selection of delicious Gevalia Gourmet blah blah blah..."
So now I'm thinking something strange is afoot. Two mysterious, unsolicited packages arrive at my door in less than a week? Something smells fishy, and this time it's not Meesha's nipples.I call the customer service number listed on the Gevalia shipping invoice and say, "Yo, what up biotch! I di'int order this sheeeat!"
We discuss the matter for a few minutes and I learn that the order was charged to one of my credit cards. I make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I don't want the coffee subscription and please cancel the account and any future orders.
Next I call my credit card company and, after navigating the IVR menu for a few minutes, I get the fraud department. I learn that the book and the coffee are two of three unauthorized charges to my account, the third being a $10 charge to Blockbuster.com.
I get everything straightened out with Credit Card Co. They suspend the account, lock down the number and order me up a couple of new cards (one for me, one for the missus). We rarely use the cards, which really is what allowed us to catch these recent charges as the red flags that they are.
But I do have some lingering questions, like just what the hell is going on here? I hardly ever use the card, so how did the perpetrator(s) get the number? If this is some kind of credit card theft, why buy only three items, each of which is only ten bucks or less? And why have the items shipped to my address?
So I concluded that I've either been hit by retarded identity thieves, or I'm being punked by some joker who thought it would be funny send me goofy stuff that I didn't really want. Thing is, books and coffee aren't as funny as, oh, I don't know, a new iPod.
Whatever the case, let this be a warning to you kids to keep an eye on your credit card statements. Check your balances regularly and if you find anything suspicious in your mailbox, be sure to panic first and ask questions later.
And that's... One to Grow On®
tagged: credit card, fraud, BOMC2, Gevalia, Blockbuster, Half Price Books
I am going to be Safety Sally and add to this...Make sure to shred duplicate copies of checks and other sensitive papers b/4 tossing in the garbage. No brainer, right? I had some punk-ass steal my garbage and create checks with my bank account number by piecing together ripped up checks. That was 10 years ago and I am still dealing with it. Identity Stealers Suck!
ReplyDeleteI asked you to keep one thing a secret...one thing...one..
ReplyDeleteLast year I had my debit card number stolen. Less than six months later, someone had stolen my NEW number. Both times, people bought stuff in California. I don't know how they got the numbers, but I shred my receipts and other financial stuff religiously.
ReplyDeleteI agree that your id theft was weird...why steal somebody's identity only to send you stuff? I'm glad you caught it quickly. That could have sucked really bad.
ReplyDeleteactually with Gevalia Coffee you get a pretty good free gift when you sign up, usually coffeemaker and a pound of coffee, so the thief kept the free gift. the same with book club, you'd get a number of free books when you sign up.Not sure how they forwarded the rest of the shipments, but unless you got the free stuff, that's what they were after.
ReplyDeleteI'm on AJ's train...same thing happened to me last year, except my ID thief was in Mexico. It happened again this year, but the bank caught it before hand (???) and sent me a new card and cancelled the old one proactively. Very odd.
ReplyDeleteDo you get to keep the coffee and the book?
Faith,
ReplyDeleteYou're darn tootin' I'm keeping the book and the coffee! (Although, half the coffee was decaffeinated, pfffth! As if!)
I returned the Vonage gear last month, but keeping the Gevalia coffee and maker. I'm thinking this is new a new rage among unscrupulous marketing companies to spam snail mail boxes with unsolicited crap, betting on odds that lazy arses will just sit back and take it all.
ReplyDeleteVerify unauthorized Vonage charge ... check
Verify unauthorized Gevalia charge ... check
Report WAMU card compromised/stolen ... check
Hot coffee ready ... check.
This is so weird. Like you, I received a Gevalia coffee maker via UPS today that I never ordered. Called them, told them I didn't order it, and canceled my credit card.
ReplyDeleteIs this identity theft or some strange marketing ploy? My credit card co. also said that some charges were made through Scholastic at Home. They sell kids learning books??? What the heck is this?
Wow, the same thing happened to me (same 3 charges)! I found this site after googling the companies involved. I made some charges to Amazon around the same time these were made...did you happen to do the same thing? I'm thinking maybe its not some insidious retarded ID theft, but more likely some retarded thing run by Amazon that signs you up for these services if you dont watch out. Thats the only way I can think of that would link my Credit Card to my address.
ReplyDeleteI received the Gevalia coffeemaker, too, without having ordered it. Fortunately, my card had not been charged, but I cancelled the card anyway.
ReplyDeleteBy any chance is your card with GM or HSBC?
Anon 10/17/08,
ReplyDeleteI think it was a Bank of America credit card. Not sure if they're owned by GM or HSBC, there's been a lot of consolidation in the banking industry.
Anon 8/18/08,
ReplyDeleteYou may be on to something with your Amazon theory. I have used that account to buy Amazon crap, but I can't remember if there was any correlation in the timing.
What you say makes sense, though.
Wow same thing happened to me! All the packages were sent to myself, using my credit card number. Among the weirder ones were blank VistaPrint business cards, a bottle of Acai berry vitamins, an AARP retirees membership, and a couple of pyramid scheme get-rich-quick scam programs. Also some health book from canada was on it's way, but I called the publisher before it shipped and cancelled it.
ReplyDeleteI guess somebody is gettin commission for ordering this shit. Lame.
Our credit card companies must be thinkin WTF, yeah right you didn't send for these items, they went to your house! Actually that's what the canadian publisher (Lombardi) accused me of.
I've had the same thing, first from the Progressive Book Club. I got 3 books (2 love Obama and 1 I hate McCain book). All charged to me and then sent to me. I cancelled the card immediately and today I got a letter from the BOMC2 that said my order was declined by the bank. Thank God! This is so crazy. Why steal my numbers, buy stuff and send it to me. LOL, this is crazy!
ReplyDeleteThe same thing just happen to me this week. I got got the Gevalia coffee maker today and some weird type business cards about 3 days ago in the mail. Checked my citi credit card and it has been used for a month.. there is also some weird x-box charges for 5 dollards from Hong Kong. Now I'm trying to get the issue solved. It is weird how they have my address and phone number though. Someone might be onto something with this amazon theory. Being a student I do use the website to buy and sell textbooks. I do hope this is just a credit card fraud and not a complete identity theft, this would be much harder and upsetting to clear up.
ReplyDeleteSame shit just happened to me!
ReplyDeleteLast week, I got an email from Capital One saying my card had suspicious charges on it. I believed it, since I hadn't used that card in about 9 months, any charge would be suspicious.
I called Capital One, got the charges taken off. He listed 3 charges, including one from Netflix.
A few days later, I got a photo CD from York Photo. It just had stock images on it, so I assumed it was junk mail.
Then today, I got the Gevalia starter kit thing. On the receipt, the charge looked like a familiar amount. I look up my Capital One account and sure enough, Gevalia AND York Photo were listed there.
I called Captial One again, and got those charges taken off.
Then I called Gevalia. They had some bogus phone number. I asked if I should do anything, they told me to keep it.
They also gave me the phone number on the account (probably against some privacy policy of theirs...). Surprisingly, it was a local number. I dialed it up. While it was ringing, I felt kinda cool. Like I was going to crack this identity theft WIDE OPEN!
The fake number was out of service. :(
Very interesting to see someone else got shit from Gevalia.
same story, BOMC netflix Grants_for_Less, sent to my address. Crazy. Cancelled my card and Hope it goes away.
ReplyDeleteInteresting pattern ...
ReplyDeleteI also got Acai Berry, Vista Print and BOMC2 charges --- the shipments went to a previous address of mine (one year old). So somebody must have started to use credit card information from one year ago ....
Not to necro post, but the same thing just happened to me shortly after using Amazon. I rarely use my card, so I'm pretty sure that's where my number was compromised. I got acai berry, wrinkle cream, and some disgusting packets of "colon cleanse." I would have preferred the coffee. But, joking aside, I think there's a problem there.
ReplyDeleteThis just happened to me too. I ordered some things from Amazon - within a few days, I got a suspicious charges alert for my BofA credit card.
ReplyDelete$299 from an online diamond jewelry store, netflix, an internet games company... I cancelled the card and put a fraud alert on my credit report. Now a week later, I get a BOMC2 book delivered. I'm going to contact customer service at Amazon.
This recently happened to me, I noticed charges from gevalia and norton.com. I called both companies as well as my credit card company to investigate. A few days later a HUGE gevalia package arrived at my door, so I called customer service and they just appologized and told me to keep the package and that they would refund my money. I found that very odd that they did not want to investigate any further and would just GIVE away their merchandise. Prior to these charges I had purchased several items from Amazon using my Bank of America credit card. Is this some sort of marketing fraud?
ReplyDeleteSame thing here, Amazon, next week coffee, no charges found yet...WTF Mate?
ReplyDeleteYou’re very lucky that you received a free Gevalia Coffee maker. I wish I will have one too.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading all your stories I can probably say that the culprits are people who play games (mainly zynga games on facebook) and use these cards to get game coins or game cash.
ReplyDeleteSadly the perpetrators may be under your own roof (your kids) or someone you know who can easily get your personal info.
Either way all of those companies you mentioned advertise 3rd party offers for game credits.
So if anyone of your kids are on FB playing games such as yoville, farmville, mafia wars or the like then you have found your man...lol some offers even get billed to your cellphone so that's another giveaway.
Hope that I was able to help.
From reading all your stories I can probably say that the culprits are people who play games (mainly zynga games on facebook) and use these cards to get game coins or game cash.
ReplyDeleteSadly the perpetrators may be under your own roof (your kids) or someone you know who can easily get your personal info.
Either way all of those companies you mentioned advertise 3rd party offers for game credits.
So if anyone of your kids are on FB playing games such as yoville, farmville, mafia wars or the like then you have found your man...lol some offers even get billed to your cellphone so that's another giveaway.
Hope that I was able to help.