Well what a day my husband had on July 21st. He drove to his office in Stockport, parked up and paid at the machine with his credit card. He then bought a coke from a vending machine ($1), went to Bed, Bath and Beyond ($500), Walgreens ($500), Hollister ($267) following it up with a slap up meal ($184). Pretty impressive getting to SC, having a good splurge and then driving back to Liverpool in time for supper!

Our first experience of card cloning

Good grief. They really need to make them safer.

Though when I bought my tickets to the UK in 2013 the purchase wouldn't go through as I don't normally make purchases of that amount.

When I was in the UK last in 2013 I tried to use the credit card once and it was rejected,
due to my credit card company not thinking I would be in the UK, despite the conversation I had with the credit card rep about how I would be in the UK from the dates on my airline tickets that I had just purchased.

I'm surprised the spending spree didn't raise any red flags unless your husband bounces around between the two countries frequently.

Criminals will always be one step ahead of the good guys.

Not sure if the cards are the issue, and may have more do to with lack of proper data protection at merchants, we only hear of the big data breaches at the large companies, but small companies are even worse for data protection.

Yeah I remember getting my UK credit card bill only to find someone had spent $2000 at Best Buy in Los Angeles then gone for a pizza to celebrate.

We had a $10,000 line of credit opened in my wife's name with Nordstrom. We received the new card, and bill (fully maxed out) in the same days mail.
We have fraud alerts on our files now, and creditors must call the number on file (my cell) to verify a new line of credit being opened.

In 2009, someone in Florida attempted to get a mortgage using my name and info, luckily having no lived in the US for many years and no open credit lines my score there is too low and they were never approved, took a lot of work and effort on my part though to get the 15 or so inquiries removed.

There is an alert on my credit files, I get an email about once a year advising me someone has attempted to do something, crazy how the crooks find your info.

My wife just had this joy.
She recently went on a medical relief trip to Guatemala.
Departed from Miami, used her card from lunch and a few gifts.
Arrived in Guatemala and promptly started using her card in Canada!
It was magic! The bank called me up and asked where she was, then put a block on the card.
Poor thing had no $$ whilst there and to make it even better her case was misplaced when she landed. So no clean clothes for a week
Thanks God she was with friends.

My wife got a new Visa card in the mail a few months ago, as her old one had been hacked. But earlier that same day we got a message from Visa saying not to use the new one as it had been hacked. They sent her yet another.

We thought about that, but this on the Equifax site was a surprise ...

"Other Factors You Should Consider: Fraud alerts will not necessarily prevent someone from opening an account in your name. In particular for an initial fraud alert, a creditor is not required by law to contact you."

I was thinking about looking for this thread about an hour ago.....

2 new Wells Fargo debit cards for both my accounts arrived this morning due to "security concerns". Not for OH just me. I reckon they had a security breach and aren't telling. That'll be the 2nd lot of new cards this year for me. At least these ones have chips.

Chips always win, salt'n vinegar?

Walmart near us takes my new chipped card and sticks it in a "reader", but then just gives it back. never asks for any kind of input from me.

Near as I can tell, It's like a swipe except now they don't even bother looking at it at all (which they used to do maybe 10% of the time).

I'm still waiting for sprout + PIN to catch on.

Equifax has an interest in selling your credit score to lenders. I'm not sure how much of that statement is fluffed out to dissuade you from adding an alert. They specifically mention "initial" fraud alert (which is the 90 day one). We placed an extended fraud alert. Now I don't know if extended alerts work the same way, but it is odd they specifically pointed out "initial" in their statement.

Extended Fraud Alerts and Credit Freezes | Consumer Information

Another option is to use a credit freeze. We had these on file, but removed them after a year or so. Insurance rates in many states are based on credit scores. It became very cumbersome to remove them temporarily. Once credit company even had us mail a letter each time we wanted to request the temporary suspension of the credit freeze.

I always said that a bag full of sovereigns was the way to finance all purchases. Stuff this card nonsense.