My credit card number has been stolen :-( It finally happened. I have been using it online for over 4 years but this is the first time it happens.

I don't understand, I have been very careful! I shred most of my credit card receipts; whenever I submit my credit card number to an online merchant, I always make sure the information goes over the network in an encrypted way (https). This was my yahoo card that I use for most of my online shopping, I suspect the number was taken because of one of the numerous internet purchases I made...

Anyway in the end, it is no big deal, the expenses that the thief made have been reimbursed by FirstBank, and they already mailed me a new card... It is kind of humiliating though and you lose a little of the trust you may have with credit cards and online shopping...

Surprisingly, FirstBank were the one to detect the fraud, not me. I received a letter telling me they wanted to check the validity of certain purchases that had been posted on my card recently. I called the number they provided and with a customer service representative we went over a my recent card activity, 3 purchases were made by someone else than me!

Stuff the crook used my credit card number for:

I don't know how they detected it. Maybe because the number of online purchases was unusually high... Anyway it is good they did, since all of them were small amounts, done every 4 to 5 days, I do not think I would have seen it myself. Yes I admit, I don't really read my statements unless the balance is not in the vicinity of what I am used to pay on my monthly bill.

The good thing it that Citibank started to provide free one-time credit card numbers and it is great. You run their piece of software, you log-in with your username and passw ord and you can generate a temporary credit card number whenever you need it. You use it as if it was the one on your Credit Card on no one can reuse it. Since I also have a Citibank card, I am definitively going to use one of those from now on for my online purchases.