Credit Crunch

October 23, 2008 6:02 PM

My friend has been scammed, and I'm hoping the hive mind can help her find a solution for the best course of action to take.

She checked her credit card balance and noticed she was charged $250 from a website called manstermed.com. She has no idea what the site is about and doesn't remember using her card to charge for anything in that amount. Well, when you type in the address, it redirects you right to a support page with a list of contacts. With each attempt, she's gotten some form of runaround or been put on hold for over an hour.

Next, she contacted her bank, and they informed her the best they could do was put a freeze on the card, and if her claims of fraud are true, she'll probably be reimbursed the amount.

I did what research I could, and apparently this is a scam of multiple magnitudes.

I'm hoping someone who knows more about the nature of this kind of fraud can best provide information on what can be done, how to resolve it, and what chances my friend has of getting her money back.

posted by Christ, what an asshole to law & government (17 comments total)

It's not a big deal. Protest the charge, make sure she gets a new card with a new #. SHe will get her money back.
posted by lee at 6:08 PM on October 23, 2008

Yes, but how is she going to prove that it's fraud? Also, the bank is refusing to refund the overdraft fee.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 6:10 PM on October 23, 2008

I wouldn't contact manstermed.com at all. It is a waste of time and exposes her to more theft. The card company will take care of it.
posted by lee at 6:10 PM on October 23, 2008

How was she scammed? If this is just a charge appearing on her bill that she had nothing to do with, then she'll get the money back for certain. If someone tricked her into signing for something and did provide the product/service she signed for, then it gets a little more tricky.
posted by winston at 6:12 PM on October 23, 2008

She doesn't need to prove it's fraud. They need to prove it's legit.
posted by winston at 6:13 PM on October 23, 2008

Once she protests, manstermed is going to have to prove that they have evidence that she did buy something.
She can talk to a manager at the bank after the charge is removed and probably get the overdraft money back.
posted by lee at 6:14 PM on October 23, 2008

Call or email a local news station. They will usually drop everything to uncover internet scams. If you are in NYC, go to to the Fox 5 website and send a note to Arnold Diaz. He is a one of those consumer rights reporters. If not in NYC, go to your local news station's website -- because every market has one of these reporters. And as I said- they love internet scams.
posted by Zambrano at 6:16 PM on October 23, 2008

Yeah, this has happened to me twice over the years -- it was really no big deal. All she has to do is dispute the charge. Her credit card company will take it from there. It's up to the vendor to prove that it's legit. Both times that this happened to me, I got the charge removed immediately, filled out the paperwork that the CC company sent me, got a new card in the mail, and never worried about it again.
posted by scody at 6:17 PM on October 23, 2008

Overdraft fee? Can you explain how there is an overdraft fee associated with a credit card? You don't explain this in your original question.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:42 PM on October 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ahh, it was a debit, not credit, card that was used. Just got that info when I asked her to clarify. So it's her account that's frozen.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 6:49 PM on October 23, 2008

She needs to go into the bank, have them close the account & open a new one, change the account number and/or order a new card, and file a fraud report. Plus she should report it to the police. The people refusing to reverse the overdraft are jerks IMHO, but that's probably policy. Best for her might be to try going the next level up, a phone center or branch manager. (This happened to me 10+ years ago, btw, and I bawled my eyes out in the bank. They were entirely awesome about getting everything sorted out.)
posted by epersonae at 7:12 PM on October 23, 2008

There's a federal regulation "Reg E" that state how banks need to deal with debit card complaints, although there is some variation on whether banks do the minimum required or do more. One important thing is that she needs to notify her bank in writing when she notices a fraudulent charge, because the bank does not have to respond to any claims that are 60 days past the statement date of the charge. So be careful not to waste time contacting scam merchants, because some people miss the deadline while playing phone-tag with crooks.

The bank may also limit their liability by only covering amounts over $50.00 or over $500.00 depending on how soon the bank is notified. The details should be in the bank literature that she got with the card/account set-up.

My bank focuses a lot on customer service, so we pretty much always issue a full refund within five days and refund all overdraft fees. Exceptions tend to be people who gave cards and pin numbers to dishonest friends/SO's or people who don't read the fine print on internet purchases. Don't even get me started on Direct TV charges. We then wait 90 days to get copies of receipts from the merchants, and will sometimes reverse the credit if the merchant has a good signature or a signed contract. But in most cases their isn't real evidence that the customer was responsible, so they usually keep the credit.

If she's in a credit union, Reg E doesn't apply, but they do have something similar.

P.S. She needs to get credit card for internet purchases. You don't want to put a debit card number out on the internet and risk you bank account getting emptied out for the week that it can take to fix these problems.
posted by saffry at 7:27 PM on October 23, 2008

I'm not the OP but something similar is going on with me. I can't get a company to stop charging me a monthly fee I've canceled months ago. No amount of calling to the bank or the company has helped. Thanks to this question, I'm contacting my back and closing that account number and re-opening a new one with a new account number and new debit card. Thanks epersonae.
posted by toastedbeagle at 7:39 PM on October 23, 2008

toastedbeagle: If you originally signed up with that company with your debit card (i.e. they don't know your account number, just the card number) just call your bank and report the card lost, it's less work than starting a new account.

I had to do this with a hosting company that had no way of canceling for a domain I didn't want anymore.

Just remember to change your billing info with any other companies you have automatic billing with.
posted by Bonzai at 7:45 PM on October 23, 2008

Re the overdraft charges, your friend might ask if there is an appeal process. I got some overdrafts reversed that I did not even have a decent excuse for after being denied by the employee at the bank branch by calling the customer support line and talking with someone else.
posted by moift at 7:53 PM on October 23, 2008

This is a pretty common occurrence. It's happened twice this year to me already. There's little that can be done about it, except to cancel the card and get a new one. They shouldn't have to freeze the account. They can simply cancel the number immediately and then they'll run through recent purchases with her to find out what's hers and what isn't.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:39 AM on October 24, 2008

As saffry has said, and I just feel that it is worth repeating, don't use debit cards on the internet!
posted by mbatch at 8:16 AM on October 24, 2008