Well this was a surprise as I was simply doing my regular bill payments with my credit card. For some reason it kept getting declined and I was presented with messages such as “Financial Institution Response: Declined.” So to me it was obviously blocked for whatever reason and therefore I went ahead and contacted the bank. As usual the automated process asks you to enter your number over the phone followed by the pound sign. This is the first time I heard a message afterwards where the voice message said “We need to talk to you about your account.”
The live representative informed me that someone attempted to use my credit card six times on a transaction I had no idea about. So, the procedure is to terminate the card and a new one would be issued. I was trying to think hard how this would be possible as I haven’t had problems for years and I usually use it in the same places all the time. I was then thinking back last year and literally the only new place I decided to make a purchase with my credit card was from the site Aliexpress.com. Normally I would be extremely hesitant to shop with vendors in foreign countries. All that news about how Alibaba and its IPO success along with a sales event made me curious to try it as a consumer.
Of course this isn’t concrete proof that my credit card number got stolen as a result of that site, but I track all of my spending diligently and that was literally the only new company I made a purchase with. So the timing is a little too coincidental I think. One good thing I thought was how efficient the credit card’s security system is in blocking unauthorized and suspicious transactions to create the flag.
Looks like I will be down a few days without my main credit card. Be interesting if others have experienced a similar situation after making a purchase with Aliexpress.
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