Wow, when it happens to you, you’ll realize how serious online security is. Today, somebody, somewhere, used my credit card to purchase things (games, credits?) on Steamgames.com. He/She managed to spend 600 USD before my credit card’s Anti-Fraud found the transactions suspicious and blocked my card. I also got the text notifications reporting the transaction and the warning, so I called them up to confirm that the transactions are not valid. My card was with me the whole time, and this happened at around 12 midnight. Also, there is usually a verification process for online transactions (OTP sent through SMS), but I didn’t receive any verifications for these fraudulent transactions.

I guess we really can’t be too careful when it comes to financial transactions online. I haven’t installed any new apps that could have potentially leaked my credit card details so I don’t really know what happened. My credit card company will be investigating these transactions and hopefully, I will not be charged for them. I’m grateful that my credit card company sends notifications after each transaction, so I knew within a few minutes that someone was using my card fraudulently. In a way, the credit card company also blocked my card “proactively”, before other additional charges went it. I received 4 more transaction attempts after the proactive blocking. The nerve of this person! I wish all thieves die in hell – people work hard to earn money and they just steal it like that??! I wish there was a way also to report this to Steam Games so they can trace the account and suspend it!

I know these details are an individual’s personal responsibility, but how can you prevent it, really? In this age of the internet where everything happens online, you cannot not prevent using credit cards for purchases, etc. The best thing one can do is select financial institutions with great controls and anti-fraud detection. The next step for me is to change all passwords and have all of my cards replaced. Again, one can’t be too careful with these things!