Explain this scam

I ordered a bumper for my truck a few months ago from Carparts.com. A few days ago at 1am I get emails from them confirming my new order of about $250 worth of lights and that an account on Zip had been set up for billing. All of this done by someone else.

I look into it and they used a ship to address that I haven't lived at in 2 years. It is a Single family home in a very good neighborhood (IE everyone has cameras).

I call carparts they tell me nothing. Order looked legit and Zip will pay. I tell them I didn't place the order. They said it was already processed and can't be stopped. I can return if I want.

Zip is one of those buy now pay later companies that hold your credit card for monthly payments. I call Zip to find out how someone could open an account. They won't tell me what credit card was used, but the account looked legit. The card was legit. They only give me the last 4 of the card and it wasn't one of mine. A check of my credit shows no new accounts. Zip says they will close the account and they apologize for letting someone open an account in my name.

The items ship separately. I tell the person that lives at my old address. He is the kind of guy that is suspicious of everything. He waits for the first package, puts it in front of his hidden camera, it sits all day. Nothing. Next package arrives the next day. Nothing. It sits all day. No one remotely suspicious comes by.

I am really confused by this one. Why would someone go through the effort to do all this? I did get a confirmation from zip that they disabled my account from someone with a Vietnam IP address.

Now I have some tail lights and bulbs that I really don't need.

 

scammer buys a list of credit card numbers.

scammer needs to see which ones are good.

scammer makes a small-ish purchase to test number.

watches delivery confirmation and such, sees the order worked, their new high limit loan is set up.

scammer now sells card number as “good” and verified or makes big purchase for big scam win.

simple, really.

 

Here’s another one for you: https://mashable.com/article/nespresso-money-mules-ebay-credit-card-fraud-def-con

 

I would report it to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.....

 

Probably a “brushing” scam. Used your random info to create an order and Zip so they could cancel payment after the parts shipped. Shipping the parts gives a legitimate transaction so they can leave a review. Did you check the box to see if they actually contained the parts listed?

 

Call your credit card company. I have had a couple issues and chase resolved it quickly and to my favor

 

That may be along the lines of what they are doing. They could have purchased up to $700 with Zip, but I don't understand the effort to go through to open the zip account if they already had a credit card.

That was the first thing I did to see if anyone had any hard inquiries and then followed that up by freezing my credit report on all 3.

Yeah, I got the parts. Anyone need tail lights for a 2017-2021 Tacoma?

That is where it gets weird. It wasn't my credit card they used. I checked with my back to make sure there was nothing in my name that ended with those 4 numbers.

 

Happens to me once in a while from Amazon. I got a weird smartwatch with integrated earbuds last week. A few months ago I got a six pack of deodorizing spray. Someone really loves reviewing things in my honor, I guess.

 

May not have been your credit card ... this time. Could all fit in the "trial run" category. See if the order raises red flags with "oops ... MY card ordered that!?". After that they use information they have on you.

I would get a new card with a new number ... same account, just kills use of the old card number.

 

You weren't the target of the scam. Whoever's stolen credit card was used was the target. Your info was used just to create a fake account that had a legit name and address.

 

Definitely. But the selling company will only share the card information (name, account) with police, and selling company may not even report it on behalf of the card owner. We may all be good people on the outside, but we cannot do much more than say "not mine!".

 

A year ago someone hacked my credit card number, and other info in some manor. They used it on a series of small purchases on Amazon prime. I have no account with amazon, only the wife does. Called my credit card company to complain. They transferred me to their fraud division where my old card was terminated, and got issued a new card days later. I personally know the same has happened to others, so this is nothing new...happens all the time. In fact just about every financial institution I can think of has been hacked at one time or another.

 

I don’t know on your end.
But I got an alert last week that some one had tried to use my credit card.
But that credit card had been shutdown for 2 years. The whole reason it was shutdown was due to it being hacked/skimmed.

I guess someone sold list with my number on it to someone else.
I now deactivate all my cards until the minute I need to use them.
So far, it seems to work. But who knows……

 

Call the CC company and tell them to cancel and re-issue a card due to a fraud purchase.
They may reverse the charge as well.

 

That is kind of what I was thinking. The information they used to set up the Zip account is all information you can find on the internet. Name, address, date of birth, etc. wouldn't they need the credit card to match at least the name and zip code? That's where I get lost on this. Why the extra effort for Zip. I guess it could be that the vendor doesn't see the credit card and the 3rd party billing company adds complexity because I was in a bit of back and forth between them with no one wanting to accept responsibility.

 

Still, best plan is let the owner of the ripped card deal with it (nothing else you can do!) and just replace your cards with new numbers through your CC company just in case. Not all at once ... they are dead as soon as reported so you have 0 active cards if you replace all at once.

 

OP; go into your banking app right now and freeze your credit card and request the bank issue you a replacement. A big hassle I know if you have tons of stuff auto-paying to that card number.

 

they may try to just get the refund money

 

Similar thing happened to me,

I get a unsolicited call letting me know I've won a in-house message.

Masseuse shows up, is GORGEOUS. On the way out I notice she's stolen all the cash in my wallet and a few bottles of wine.

She robbed me twice last month, and again this past Sunday.

Needs to be stopped.

 

I am a Hotel brand X honor member, 50-70 nights per year, so I have the booking/checking process down fairly good by now. Last Christmas season I was checking in and the girl at the front desk asked for my credit card when I showed her my ID. Hmmm, I didn't ask any questions, she put the card in front of her and I watched her friggin put my card info into her computer. I didn't say anything, I really wanted to be wrong. Got to the room, looked the card up on line and I'll be damned, she bought tickets for a concert in San Diego with my credit card. Anyways, called the card, they closed that down. Called my sponsor that is a general manager of a few hotels in the corporation. Anyways, sometimes people are not too smart, I mean it says when I check in "this person is a so and so member, meaning they know how the system works.