OT Amazon.com charge?

[Jack]

Having ordered some woodworking tools and books, DVDs and CDs from Amazon.com and have been happy with them until now. Not having any transaction with them for a year now we got a bogus charge for over a $100 from Amazon.com on the credit card and have no clue as to what that was. Amazon.com promised to get back with us but that was last month! We called Amazon.com again last week and still no word. It's also strange on the credit card end they either don't know or won't tell what that charge was but we had a payment stop nonetheless. Do retailers keep your credit card number and personal information forever and how safe is it in their hands? Wanted to order some more tools and stuff from Amazon.com but not very comfortable in doing so until the bogus charge is resolved.

[Gus]

I have never had this problem with Amazon.

I did have some fraudulent charges against my checking account, which I had reversed successfully. Identity theft is rampant.

Which credit card was it?

If it's the Amazon card, that is administered by Chas and any fraud should be reported to them.

[fredfighter]

Good.

Some do, some do not. A big outfit that does routine backups of their database may not have any reliable way to permanently remove your records from their backup media though they _should_ be able to reliably keep it offline.

It sounds like maybe your amazon account was hacked. That could be the result of poor security at either end of the transaction. E.g. either their computers or yours.

You have not, by any chance, replied to any emails _putatively_ from Amazon that requested to confirm your account or credit card information, have you? If so it was a 'phish', an email sent by someone who was not amazon in an attempt to get your account information.

If you did get anything like that, be sure to save it and forward it with headers to Amazon. An SMTP savvy person can read those headers to determine where it really came from, though usually spammers and phishers host with or send through trojaned machines on Cable networks, MCI or other ISPs who are uncooperative on abuse issues.

[David]

contact your credit card company to dispute the charge.

[marks542004]

You should log on to your Amazon account and pull up the history.

That should tell you what the invoice was , the item purchased and the shipping address.

Make sure you sign-out.

[todd]

My credit card company has a feature that allows you to go online to their web site and generate a one-time use number that optionally has a dollar limit. That way, I don't worry if someone gets the number after the fact because it's worthless. It has been demonstrated time and again that this information is unsafe in the hands of retailers, schools, etc.

todd

[B a r r y]

Very cool.

Care to share the name of the issuer?

Thanks!

[Leon]

Citibank