This morning I woke up to find out that my bank account had been cleared of $650. I called the bank to find out where the charge came from. They said Adobe. I called Adobe and found out that my card had indeed been charged with someone else's name and address. They would not give me that person's name and referred me back to the bank to file a fraud claim. I will get the money back, but what bothered me is why Photoshop? Being that the purchase was art related, it could possibly mean that one of the art sites that holds cards was hacked. I'm not accusing any site of such. I am posting here to give everyone a head's up that something might be amiss, and it would be a good idea for you all to check your statements or online banking to be sure that you were not also hit.

Good thinking! I've been a victim of bank identity theft myself and it really sucks trying to get your financial stuff back together. Aside from not oredering by card, the only partial solution I've found is to use a low-limit CREDIT (not debit) card, and keep close tabs on it. (With a debit card, a thief can clean out the entire account it's attached to, and it's YOUR money that's gone, not the bank's.)

Actually I have a debit card, and my bank has been excellent about returning the money in these cases. I did close out the card though and waiting for a reissue. The account it's connected to though is very low, not my real account...
Since the transaction is only in pre-auth, it's possible that I can head off the charge at the pass. Adobe said I could speak to a supervisor tomorrow which may get them to validate with the bank that the card is not correct and they won't ship/charge the item...

Message edited on: 04/03/2005 17:25

I hope Adobe or the bank sends the cops over to the crooks house.

They can easily trace that if Adobe/Bank wanted to press charges. All they need is the ISP/IP to get a true match.

Yeah, they possibly can. Will leave that up to them. I am just glad that my bank is such that they will return the cash, though it would be much easier if Adobe doesn't charge the card beyond pre-auth which means the money will automatically be taken out of hold after 3-4 days. It just goes to show you that you shouldn't have too much money in any account that is online and that you should get online banking if you don't have, because waiting for your statement, it's a lot harder to find out these things.

That is strange. I thought you can not use credit card with any other name than what is written in the card exactly. For example, if the name in the card is "George W. Bush", you can not even pay anything with name "George Bush". On the other hand, it is not necessary to hack any sites to use your credit card number. If you just show your credit card to someone, they can write down the number and use it later. Or, if you throw away the receipt that contains credit card info, anyone could dick that from the trash can. Then there are all these credit card fraud email spams. For example, I have received many emails from "eBay" and "PayPal" asking to "update my account info".

Oh, yeah. I get those from "Earthlink" fairly regularly. Look damned authentic, too. I wonder if I ought to supply them with completely bogus information just to screw them up. Would be almost as much fun as leading good ol' Snugwu Ukwu with the Nigerian bank account a merry internet chase! The good news in my case is that they caught the SOB and he's now enjoying the state's hospitality for 3-to-5.

You all do realize that even if you don't have an online bank account that your cc info is still stored online in a database by your bank or card holders? All bank info is now digital you don't even get cancelled checks anymore which sucks in my opinion. Just a pain in the butt if a hacker should somehow get a hold of the databases that the info is stored in. All they need is the number, expire dates and the 3 digit security number if there is one on the card. A name is not really required anymore in some cases if the numbers match, the site won't check to see if it's auth They've made it easier and easier for any hack to get this personal info.

Message edited on: 04/04/2005 17:21

UPDATE: I talked to Adobe today and they are not going to ship the item, therefore they aren't going to charge the item and thus I will get the pre-auth dropped in about 2-3 days. Yesterday when I talked to the girl at Adobe, she said that the name on the account with my card didn't match. Today I talked to a supervisor who tells me that they used my name, address, card number, etc. However, he also said that the billing address was in Illinois and the shipping address is in Miami. Now to me, that makes no sense. If my address was not the billing one and it wasn't the shipping one, what other one was there? I have a feeling that he confused the account that Adobe set up for me as the crook having my address. The card was denied after the pre-auth, which could have meant that their system denied it all along. If you run your card through, even if it's denied, they can still pre-auth hold that cash. Not sure what to think at this point, but glad that at least the money won't get siphoned out and it will save the hassle of the whole fraud investigation, though I would like to know who this bugger is. Thanks for all your support and comments...

BTW, I did not do one of those Ebay or Paypal scams. I know better than to give out information like that from some email.

at least you'll get your money back. Abobe is very good at customer service.

Actually Adobe didn't return my money. Told me the bank would have to do it.

UPDATE:
The crook didn't have my information, just the card #. The guy at Adobe was confused by the account that I had there. Adobe's online system didn't bother to check to see if the address matched or not before allowing the guy to download the software. First Adobe tried to blame the bank, then when I told them that the bank's system responded properly, they tried to say it was against privacy policies to check the address to see if it matched. I laughed at the guy's face over that one. Since the crook did download the software, Adobe has to have a bank fraud claim and a police report in order to free the money back. They even tried to claim that maybe I was the one who downloaded the software and am now asking for the money back. I'm the victim in this and they want t treat me like the criminal. So it's off to the police station and the bank today to get all the paperwork filled out.

I still have hope that I'll get the money back, but it's a lot longer time to have to float...

Why wouldn't Adobe just credit your account? That's what they normally do when you return things.

Because the item was downloaded, rather than shipped. So there is no physical product to send back to get the refund, so it has to be handled the long way. I went to the police station, they sent me to the bank to get documentation. I went to the bank to get documentation and then went back to the police station. They didn't seem to know much of what I was talking about when I said it was internet fraud as I kept getting asked, "How do you still have your card?" And then they wouldn't even look at the documentation that they sent me to get. Anyway, now I'm waiting for a police report that I can take to the bank to get them to start the fraud return proceedings...argh.

Actually it wouldn't work anyway, because I didn't have the shipped item either, obviously. They'd have to get the crook to send it back (like that's gonna happen) for them to refund the money.