The Boston Globe reported this story on Feb 1.  Very Scary!

The mystery of a tiny charge on credit and debit cards is heightening to one of anticipation – of when the other shoe is going to drop.

Fraud experts are concerned about these charges – from 21 cents to 48 cents – that have appeared on cardholders’ accounts in at least 46 states. The fear is someone is trying to find usable card numbers so that they can use the cards to make bigger charges at some future date.

The small charge, showing up as being from either Adele Services or GFDL, is designed to try to fly under the radar of credit card companies’ fraud detection programs. Those companies appear to be fictitious.

“More than likely, the perpetrators are attempting to test the waters,” said Jeremy Cannon of the National White Collar Crime Center. “They are relying on their assumption that the victim will not be vigilant in monitoring their banking and credit statements.”

The scope of this scam has caught the attention of the companies and the national Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov), run by the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI. The site registered 800 formal complaints about the scam as of last week and officials issued a warning to consumers.

Why hasn’t this made the national news?  According to the article, Bank of America and Chase is fully aware of what is going on, but doesn’t want to admit to any liability.  How did the thieves get your numbers?  Hackers are really good and large operations IT departments, if my past experience with them is any indication, are somewhat lax.  Put these two facts together and it spells lawsuit.

Make sure you read your statements – if you notice one of these credit cards, it’s a pretty sure bet that you are a victim of identity theft.  Don’t just call the bank to dispute the statement, cancel your credit card.

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