Re: [Leica] OT: credit card fraud

["Roland Smith" <roland@dnai.com>]

We had a different type of fraud experience originating in St Petersburg in
the fall of 1998.  For most of our trip we used USD currency.   On out last
day in Russia, St Petersburg, we used a Visa card to make two purchases.
At that time due to the drastic decline of the exchange rate USD to Ruble,
the priced had been adjusted for the depreciated ruble.

After we had returned home the Visa bill stated in USD arrived and our
purchases were twice as much.   The Russian vendors had waited three weeks
for the ruble to rebound by 100% of its position when we made the purchases
thus doubling our purchase price.

Roland Smith
roland@dnai.com

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Brougham" <brougham3@yahoo.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 2:24 PM
Subject: [Leica] OT: credit card fraud


> I've seen various news reports about an increase in credit card theft
> with charges originating from Moscow.  Well, imagine my surprise when
> my wife opened our bill today and said, "Guess what?  We made a
> purchase in Russia!"
>
> Shows up as being 1500 rubles or so, converted to US $5.10 from Moscow,
> RU.  I'm surprised they didn't try to get a higher amount...but maybe
> they figured lower amounts would be easier to slip through.  This was
> made on 12/16, so we had lots of Christmas purchases showing up at the
> same time.
>
> My credit card company didn't give me any grief.  As soon as I
> mentioned the disputed amount was from Russia, the customer service
> rep put me on hold for a few minutes, and then came back and said
> they'd close down my account, transfer everything to a new account,
> and send new cards out right away.  She said I'd be asked to sign an
> affadavit attesting that I didn't make the purchase, and that would be
> all there was to it.
>
> So watch your bills closely!!
>
> The same bill had photo supplies on it, too.  So that makes this
> slightly on topic.  :)
>
> NO ARCHIVE
>
>
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