Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. People are reporting receiving phone calls purporting to be from the “Visa Fraud Protection Center” asking you to confirm a purchase that you never made. When you inform the caller that you did not make that particular purchase, the caller indicates that he will remove it from your account. He then tells you that you are eligible for a free fraud alert service that will monitor your card’s usage at no charge to you. You are then told all you need to do is to provide the caller with your credit card number (which the caller should already have if he is calling about a charge made to the card), the expiration date of the card and your CV code. Some of the scammers push the envelope by even asking for your Social Security number. Of course, if you provide this information to the caller, you will end up having your identity stolen and your credit card used to make fraudulent purchases.
TIPS
As always, you can never be sure of the identity of anyone who calls you. Even if your caller ID indicates the call is legitimate, caller ID can be tricked by a technique called spoofing to make it appear that the call is from your credit card company, bank or any other legitimate source. Never give personal information to anyone who calls you unless you have both verified that they are legitimate and that they have a need for the information. Credit card companies verifying unusual purchases will not ask for your personal information or card information. If you ever receive such a call that you think might be legitimate, merely hang up and call the 800 number on the back of your credit card, but make sure that you dial the number carefully because some scammers purchase telephone numbers that are only a digit off from the phone numbers of legitimate credit card companies.