I am posting this not to scare you, but to make you aware that it DOES happen!
Hopefully this post will save someone else from going through what happened to me.
I checked my credit card balance on Saturday, only to find there was a hold on my account
and to please contact my cc company. When I called to find out what the problem was
I was told someone had made large charges to airline, video stores, and a landscaping
company. These charges were not made by me. We closed the account and a new card will
be sent. This is now going thru the Fraud investigation dept.
I use the same cc to do all offers, so it is easy for me to keep track of incoming charges,
preauths, and companies that put through unauthorized charges.
How Does This Happen?
1) Either a secure site is not secure.
2) An Employee of an offer you sign up for has
access to your card. ( most likely )
3) Your computer was hacked, which was not the case with me.
What to do if it happens to you.
1) If you have any open trades with offers that are pending but not yet charged to your account
contact your trading partner and support at whatever sites and make them aware of what has happened. You will probably lose the credit, depending on the site but I found them very
helpful and supportive.
2) Contact the all the merchants that you do have monthly charges with. ( offers you have kept, book
clubs, cable or phone bills etc.)
Ways to reduce your risk.
Use 1 cc only for offers and ask your cc company to Profile you.( If you haven't already )
The bank does not want to lose money and should be more then happy to do so.
When a cc profiles you, any charges that are outside your normal transactions will put your
card on hold. ( this is how these charges were caught ).
And remember that in this economy and getting close to Christmas the thieves are out in
full force.
Check your balance daily. (especially pending transactions).
For any Newbies reading this post
This is simply a heads up. Do Not cancel your acct or offers due to simple matters such as
preauths or companies that have made an error in charging your card.
Usually a simple call to the merchant will take care of this and they will issue you a refund.
This information is for true identity theft !

While I hope I am an isolated case, I suspect I am not and hope this information will help
everyone out there.

thank you for posting this .

I am sorry to hear this happend to you...
Although Most of the time when you are doing offers, the Cc company will place a hold on your card to make sure you are the one placing the charges. All you need to do is call them and let them know yes you are placing the charges or no you are not.. And ask them to lift the hold. this is Security to the Card user.
Alot of times there will be extra additives in the offers you do, thats why it is important to make sure everything is check marked that pertains to the OFFER, and read their terms of service. they will add on to your account. if you have places marked that do not pertain to the offer. Even watch where you put your email, its like an electronic signature sometimes to the OFFER companies. you MUST READ it ALL!!!!!!
Best of Luck to you, and I hope this helps you out, Happy Holidays

While I agree that of course you must check the tos as some do have add ons ( I always write these down with the offer), However these were NOT offer related charges. And I am the only person who has access to this cc.

Wow that sounds like trouble .... Sorry this has happend to you ...
I hope every thing gets worked out for your cc ...

I am so sorry this happened to you, cerri. Do you use FireFox browser and the key scrambler add-on, which scrambles all information that you enter so that hackers cannot gain access to your card info at an allegedly secure site which may not be secure?

Of course, this wouldn't stop an employee of a offer company. I have read a few other cases about things like this happening, so I hope your bank can get to the bottom of who did this. Such a shame that the thieves come out in droves during the holidays.

Hi Cerri,

Glad you are working on it and thanks for posting! No, you are not the only case. I have had two other refs in the past this happened to. It's very sad people have to try to steal from others. One of my refs had a very expensive charge from a clothing store in Germany. My guess is it's an employee on one of the offers; but, can't ever be certain. I hope your bank gets to the bottom of this and presses charges against this thief!!

Good luck!!

~ Deb

Yes Butterboy,
I use both FireFox and Key Scrambler, along with quite a few other security measures.
Thank you for bringing that up, because that too can prove useful to many people reading this.
I just wanted to let people know what happened to me and during this busy Holiday season to
take the extra time to both check balances and protect themselves.