Fraud Alert

[MrK]

I received a call from my credit card company today asking me about a recent charge. The whole thing was automated. At no point did I talk to a live human.

After confirming I have the card in my possession it asked me to press 1 if I recognized a charge from "Computer Network and Information Services". I didn't recognize it at all. I kept pressing * to stall and replay the message while I looked through my records to determine what this was.

Finally, I realized that the date and amount matched up to my renewal with HostPC.

I don't remember if the HostPC billing system points out that the charge will not show up as "HostPC", but instead "Computer Network and Information Services", but it may be a good idea to emphasize this during the checkout process. I almost pressed the button to flag the charge as fraudulent. That would have been a fun mess to clean up.

[admin]

I received a call from my credit card company today asking me about a recent charge. The whole thing was automated. At no point did I talk to a live human.

After confirming I have the card in my possession it asked me to press 1 if I recognized a charge from "Computer Network and Information Services". I didn't recognize it at all. I kept pressing * to stall and replay the message while I looked through my records to determine what this was.

Finally, I realized that the date and amount matched up to my renewal with HostPC.

I don't remember if the HostPC billing system points out that the charge will not show up as "HostPC", but instead "Computer Network and Information Services", but it may be a good idea to emphasize this during the checkout process. I almost pressed the button to flag the charge as fraudulent. That would have been a fun mess to clean up.

I'll bet this was a Visa card, right?

The charges will STILL show as "HostPC Internet Services" - however, the call you got from your bank was probably not listing the actual VENDORS name, rather the category that they're assigned to. For instance, my personal credit union uses "Falcon (http://www.google.com/search?q=falcon+fraud+protection&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)" fraud alerts - if I have a charge to hostpc from my personal account, I get that call also, and it just gives me the category, not the vendors name.

Chances are, thats what you experienced - I'm doubtful that the automated computer call could pronounce every vendors name and most likely was just reiterating the pre-programmed categories, like Falcon does.

Let me know if it appears on your statement as anything OTHER than HostPC - it shouldn't, if it was indeed our renewal. A quick call to your credit card company or bank should verify this.

[admin]

The most recent information from our bank says:


If Falcon is unable to reach you directly, they will leave a message identifying themselves as VISA Falcon Fraud Prevention Service calling to verify transactions made with your card. To ensure this call is legitimate, Falcon will always provide 1-800-890-5097 or 1-800-437-9392 as the toll-free call back number.

[MrK]

The charge did show up as from HostPC Internet Services.

[admin]

Great, thanks for the confirmation