Compromised New Card *Before* Receiving It?

[simplynoir]

Had an intersting morning and was wondering if anyone has experienced this before. Last week apped and got approved for the Plat (with 2 AUs) and the PRG. I told my sisters to drive to my work when the packages got delivered for this morning. Came by and I activated their two cards so they could start using them today especially since they were going to enroll for summer courses in prep for the fall. That went without a hitch and they went on their way. When I tried to activate the PRG it told me to contact customer service who shocked me when she informed me due to fraud on the card they shut it down. I told them I literally just got the card in my hand from overnight delivery so how in the heck did it already get compromised and wondering why no call/text informing me. That was an intesting conversation to say the least. After all that they took care of everything and I went on my way.

So how worried should I be about this? Obviously they're overnighting a replacement card for the PRG but for the three Plat cards should I just monitor the activity for a little while or just go ahead and get them replaced just to be safe? I had the rep who was awesome btw review each of my cards for recent activity just to be safe and she assured me it was all clean just the PRG that was compromised. If the cards were sent snail mail I would understand what happened to me but for a card to come up fraud when I hadn't even received when sent overnight it just gives me a moment's pause to say the least.

[Anonymous]

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wrote:

Had an intersting morning and was wondering if anyone has experienced this before. Last week apped and got approved for the Plat (with 2 AUs) and the PRG. I told my sisters to drive to my work when the packages got delivered for this morning. Came by and I activated their two cards so they could start using them today especially since they were going to enroll for summer courses in prep for the fall. That went without a hitch and they went on their way. When I tried to activate the PRG it told me to contact customer service who shocked me when she informed me due to fraud on the card they shut it down. I told them I literally just got the card in my hand from overnight delivery so how in the heck did it already get compromised and wondering why no call/text informing me. That was an intesting conversation to say the least. After all that they took care of everything and I went on my way.

So how worried should I be about this? Obviously they're overnighting a replacement card for the PRG but for the three Plat cards should I just monitor the activity for a little while or just go ahead and get them replaced just to be safe? I had the rep who was awesome btw review each of my cards for recent activity just to be safe and she assured me it was all clean just the PRG that was compromised. If the cards were sent snail mail I would understand what happened to me but for a card to come up fraud when I hadn't even received when sent overnight it just gives me a moment's pause to say the least.

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It sucks but it happens.  Unfortunately today’s criminals have methods to getting card info and using them fraudently before you even get the card. Have read several reports of fraud on cards before the custoner received them. Almost all cards are ready to be used prior to being ‘activated’.  Some creditors have done away with the whole activating new cards because it’s basically a meaningless process.  

I wouldnt stress over it at all.  I wouldn’t cancel the Platinum cards but just monitor them as you suggest.

[longtimelurker]

As Irish said!   Basically, once the issuer is ready to send you a card, all the information is (obviously) in some computer systems, and are thus somewhat vulnerable.  There can be many players, such as the company that fabricates the card, and at each point a leak is possible.

Basically, credit card fraud is going to be part of life.   Not worth getting stressed about until and unless the banks manage to do away with 0 liability for consumers.   If that happened, the myfico players would be well advised to radically reduce the number of cards they had, and the CLs as each becomes a potential liability.

[SBR249]

+1 on the monitoring. But no need to cancel I think. 

When I got my Paypal MC 2 months ago the envelope actually came opened. I was lazy so didn't ask for a replacement but have been keeping an eye on it since. No problem so far. It's not my daily driver so it's easy to keep track of spending on there but if it was something with lots of transaction volume I probably would have asked for a replacement. 

[MrDisco99]

Yeah just monitor. You should be doing that anyway on all your accounts so that WHEN they get compromised (one or some of them will sooner or later) you can take care of it right away.

It’s really easy to set up push notifications for purchases on the Amex app. It’ll ring every time a charge is placed on your account. If you hear a ring you don’t expect you can look it up and see if it’s fraud and report it and lock the account within seconds of it happening.

[simplynoir]

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wrote:
Yeah just monitor. You should be doing that anyway on all your accounts so that WHEN they get compromised (one or some of them will sooner or later) you can take care of it right away.

It’s really easy to set up push notifications for purchases on the Amex app. It’ll ring every time a charge is placed on your account. If you hear a ring you don’t expect you can look it up and see if it’s fraud and report it and lock the account within seconds of it happening.

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Already done. I get both app push notifications and text messages from AMEX of any charges so that won't be an issue. I was just wondering if this is something I should get ahead of is all. Because while I might not be liable for any unauthorized purchases the merchants are usually the ones that are screwed out of any money in the end and would like to not have that happen if I can help it, you know?

[simplynoir]

And to everyone else thanks for advice/help!

[MrDisco99]

Yeah I totally get not wanting to go through the whole fraud process if it can be avoided. However if everything else about your plat card shipment seems normal then I think you probably don’t need to take any extra steps to mitigate risk.

I have one issuer where all of the cards they sent me came in envelopes that looked like they could have been partially opened and the card numbers compromised. I could have sent them back and lost time on meeting minimum spend and the repeat shipment may have had the same problem. I chose to just keep them and hope for the best. Knock on wood, I haven’t had any problem with them. Having alerts set up on them has helped some to ease my mind about it.

[Anonymous]

One thing to keep in mind is that new account data, like your card numbers and what not, are sometimes shared with product vendors.  While I'm not familiar with Amex, other brands use third parties for some services like bill pay or rewards.  If a new acocunt file was mistakenly sent unencrypted or via an unapproved method, Amex may have preemptively tagged the cards as lost.  The rep wouldn't know those details, but would be presented with your account statussed as lost.  Or someone just opened your mail between Amex and you.