I got hit with credit card fraud after using a site online. My Girlfriend is against mined diamonds, she saw Blood Diamond and came to the conclusion that she doesn’t want to contribute to the whole diamond economy. After seeing an advertisement for lab diamonds in the LA Times, she asked me to get her a pair of earrings from Diamond Essence for $50. I said sure, and performed my regular due diligence before putting my CC online. I first Google’d the name for horror stories, followed by checking of the SSL Certificate, and then checking the CRL for revocation. All looked good, so I put my card in.
The next day I wake up to a phone call from my credit card company asking about weird charges. I had been hit with 2K worth of charges that had been declined by the CC Company as possibly fraudulent. Only $10 actually went through. Not sure of where this came from but suspecting Diamond Essence, I decided to try again. This time using a one time use Virtual Debit card from Paypal. I checked out, and entered the card number in. The next day I woke up to a ton of declined charges for my account. I gave Diamond Essence a call to inform them of this and was basically told that I probably have spyware on my machine. I informed them that I had passed the “one time use” anecdote along to my bank and that they would be contacted, and reassured the manager that he had been hacked and that I had no malice in my intentions. He then said “that’s okay, we’ll deal with the bank” and we hung up.
Long story short, be careful out there. A hacked server will look completely normal to anyone but will copy the credit cards off to a hacker. An SSL Certificate only ensures that the connection from your browser to their server is secure and nothing more. Use one time use “virtual debit cards” whenever possible online, that way you can limit what damages can occur. Most hackers test cards by charging $1-10 dollar onto the card, so using virtual debit cards will usually limit how bad they get you. Good Luck, and Happy Shopping….