Not again!

The worst thing that can happen to a credit card holder is to have fraudulent charges charged to you. Sigh….I just had another unauthorised charge today.

At around 8pm I was resting in bed and checking/clearing my emails when I saw this email. Shocked by the huge amount of $1007.50 and who the heck is APRSGPTELTD? 

Every second counts when I do not want to have further damages done to my pocket, quickly made a call to the Fraud Hotline. 

As CO was checking with me the charges I made today apart from this $1007.50, she asked if xx amount was made as well. Not knowing how much the girls paid for the rice dumplings, I asked if it’s from Kim Choo 😂 and yes I made that transaction. 

It’s really scary, she says it’s from an online payment but I’ve not done any online shopping today or even for the past week. I wasn’t sure what is APRSG and asked her if she knows what company, she says it’s a cosmetics company. Obviously it’s not me coz I didn’t shop for things to beautify myself but rather my last online shopping in Shoppee is to beautify my house - cleaning item 🤣🤣 last week. Really I’m an Ah-soh! I have lots of masks, beauty products and barely use make up to warrant a purchase. Definitely not me making that purchase. She asked if anyone in the family used my card to make purchase. Definitely can’t be my two lazy-can’t-be-bothered-with-taking-care-of-themselves girls. Whoever had used my card for purchase was on a whimsical shopping spree. 

I explained to CO that strangely I had not received any push notification about any transaction. Usually there’ll be something that will ask if I’ve made any payment blah blah blah, I didn’t receive any notification for that transaction. Somehow I need to thank my lucky stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ that I checked my emails today, sometimes I get so busy that I only check every 3-4 days. I checked and reported 2 hours after the email. Imagine if I hadn’t check today, it will go un-noticed and the thing goes through. 

The question lingering in my mind :

- If CO said that it’s an online purchase with stored details. Then why there is no prompt of keying in CVV number? I do make it a point of not storing my data in my purchases with all these scams going on around but …. these hackers are damn smart. 

Anyway, I had to check what is APRSGPTELTD after I hung up the phone with Grace. Turns out it’s AprilSkin. Nope! Confirm 100% is not me, I don’t use their products coz I’m a fervent Kiehl’s user. But somehow this name rings a bell, I probably see it in social media. Unless maybe perhaps I bought something long long time ago (as in way before 2017?).

So if the above screenshot mentioned about subsequent purchase, in my case it’s data breach? But wait! Even if the 0.01% chance I may have bought something long long time ago from AprilSkin before, they won’t have my current card details at all coz I kena a few fraudulent charges before.  Blocked n changed my cards upteen times already. 最可笑的就是 I ever had an unauthorised charge from a liquor store in the US when I’m in SIN. When I complained to W about this, she told me she had charges from a building materials place in US. I didn’t know she was building a house.😬

Fed up with all these fraudulent charges I checked if it’s better to just use Revolut for my future purchases and I got this answer. 

But I use my credit card coz I want the points! If I use my Revolut I can’t earn rewards points to get my free $10 or $20 vouchers. I’m not exactly the bank’s best customer by tapping my card all the time, and yet it’s not like I don’t charge my card at all. 

Getting a new card is a hassle. I need to add card into wallet again, change card details in my Shoppee, Taobao, PayPal, iCloud etc..

I’m just so frustrated. Then need to check if raising dispute is successful and check amount is refunded blah blah. I can’t possibly be paying $1007.50 for something I didn’t buy. May these swindlers meet their own karma next time.