Has anyone else ever had their Credit info stolen at Meritline?
I ordered a bluetooth radio from Meritline, and two weeks later my Credit Card Co. reported fraudulent activity from CA. Anyone else have similar fate with Meritline?
by
corhei
asked a year ago
I've only ordered from them once, but I've never had any problems with them.
No, and I've used at least two different cards with them. You sure you haven't eaten out at a restaurant, or been elsewhere, that someone could have surprised you with this gift? Meritline's okay (and I'm VERY picky as to where I actually spend my money).
The fact that the fraud occurred in California is completely unrelated to your purchase. Credit card fraud is likely to occur in more populous cities (Brookline MA used to be a big one, back when I was still paying attention to fraud rates).
I've seen a lot of reports on the web stating that Meritline (or something somehow related to a Meritline purchase) had stolen their credit card info. I used to pay Meritline with a CC and never had any issues, but stopped since hearing those reports. Instead, I pay via PayPal and continue to get my fix of cheap, but generally useful/silly crap shipped to me from China.
Meritline purchases are like awesome little presents to my future self. i order something for $.99 and get a random surprise envelope 6-8 weeks later, with no idea what's inside. it's fantastic!
I love Meritline but I have only used my Paypal with them.
Side note: When Living Social had the Amazon GC, lots of people were complaining that they had their info stolen and were blaming Living Social. The peeps with the stolen info didn't even think to question the fact that they used a total stranger's referral link or that they used their cards elsewhere, also.
I too love Meritline and buy from them all the time. I use PayPal and have never had a problem with them. I did have a card stolen immediately after using it to purchase from an Amazon vendor. The perpetrator wiped out a deliberately small account of $200 buying video game and ITune items (probably some punk kid). The problem was the bank continued to overdraft the account almost another $1K. Amazon claimed they could not be to blame as they hide data from their vendors. Maybe so, but that was the only usage of the card for weeks. The bank never filled me in on their findings.
@smtatertot13: "I've seen a lot of reports..."
Let's see those reports.
@jumbowoot: is this a freakin' throw-down?
anyone can google things like "meritline scam", "meritline credit card" "did meritline steal my info?" that's what I did ages ago, after seeing someone on D.W! say they thought meritline had stolen their info. you'll find a number of people across various sites saying their info has been stolen. i cannot prove (nor disprove) their statements except to say that my information was never stolen. /knocks on wood
i also assume that by noting i still purchase there, i am implying that i don't think anything's wrong with meritline. paypal is an added layer of safety in case something fishy is going on, but i'm not worried.
I thought Meritline was out of CHINA ... Not California
@fire1427: Both. Many of their items ship from China, but they also have a warehouse in CA.
A few days after purchasing from Meritline I had my info stolen and used by people in India.
Meritline was my only purchase in the week preceding the fraud and all my other activity during the previous month was my very normal mundane activity. If I purchase from Meritline I will only use paypal.
@jumbowoot: i found 1 of those reports you requested! - http://deals.woot.com/questions/comment/93636cd7-8f4d-4b12-acea-b2343d70be49
@smtatertot13: :)
This thread is a question, not a report. There is no proof here that I have seen.
We will reach out to Meritline to see if we can help out with a contact.
In the meantime, smtatertot13 is a fattist. I bring no proof except this thread. smtatertot13 is attacking me in this thread. I am fat. smtatertot13 is a fattist...and a tatertot.
:)
That was only meant to illustrate that we should not take this type of characterization lightly. We all benefit when the community brings to light the errant practices of retailers. We all benefit if the retailer responds and corrects the situation. We would welcome links to the reports you referenced.
@murphy48: Was Meritline helpful in resolving the problem when you reported it to them?
@jumbowoot: I don't feel I was attacking anyone. I referenced the fact that people have reported on various sites that they thought meritline stole their information. I don't personally keep a saved copy of every internet site I visit nor a list of links to every internet site I visit, so no, I don't have direct proof of the so-called reports. I should probably have changed the word from 'reports' to 'claims' in my original post, which is my fault.
i never said i had proof meritline did anything wrong. in fact the only actual proof i offered was in meritline's defense, which was that i've used my CC with them and never had issues. given the concerns i saw online previously, i chose to use paypal when purchasing from meritline and have had no problems since.
i don't feel i was being inflammatory, nor do i feel the need to provide exact proof of either argument. I was simply sharing what i recall seeing.
i'm glad you reached out to meritline as this is their issue anyways. all told.
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/MeritLine
They seems to care about what people think about them, as they participate and give feedback on complaints.
I ordered two iPhone USB cables from them a while back, advertised as OEM; clearly not OEM, they ended up not even fitting the Apple connector when they finally arrived. They were probably in the ballpark of 69¢ each, but the frustration level was still there. They refunded one of the purchases.
The look and feel of the website was enough to make me only checkout via PayPal, so I can't comment on the credit card concerns.
I heard that @shawnmiller once stole 15 credit cards and... wait.... wrong thread, my bad.
@jumbowoot: I never thought to report it to them. I just took care of it with my credit card and now use paypal when I wan to buy from them.
I have been buying stuff from meritline several times a week for months. You will notice, I post a lot of there cheap deals here. Anyway they have my credit card on file and I have not had any issue with fraudulent activity. Yes, I do check all my transactions on my bill. I have also never had any issues with the 10s of products I have purchased from them. That is just my experience and I think any negative experiences with meritline are the exception and not the rule.
I've only used paypal for meritline. I have a hard time giving out cc info online, not that I haven't or won't in the future. People can bash paypal but it works for me, they've called me to verify certain purchases before letting the funds out.
I've bought scads of stuff from meritline, used Paypal and have never had a problem.
by saying that they reported fraudulent activity from CA could mean anything. you used a different billing address than your ship address. They had to try the transaction more than once to get it to go through due to who-knows-what unrelated issues. Your phone number is different, if they checked.
banks use "we detected fraudulent activity" as a blanket statement for any and every little thing. but were there other charges that you didn't make?
i've ordered from meritline a few times with no issues using my credit card. If i had issues, i'd definitely bring it up to them and more. Better Business, online reviews, the credit card company, etc.
I use Paypal and never had any problems.
I've ordered many things from them with a credit card and have never had a problem.
I have been ordering from Meritline since late 2009. I have literally 37 pages of order history with them, so I have shopped there A LOT. Every time, I have used the same credit card (not PayPal), and I have never had my info stolen.
If you suspect theft, just call your credit card company. They will likely cancel all the fradulent charges, issue you a new card with a new number, and cancel your old card. Best of luck to you.
I count nearly 50 purchases from Meritline in the last year. I've always paid by Credit card and never had a problem. BTW, how can they ship a small package (item and shipping) from Singapore to the USA for less than I can send a letter across town? I think the USPS is getting screwed.
@loubriccant: i second that
@lionlamb: I agree WTF ? How does that even work. even if the product was free you think the acutal shipping they would pay would have to be more than 099 cents
Post offices have an agreement that they will honor the country of origin's postage paid and deliver the letters/packages within their country. Yes, the USPS is getting screwed in this case.
Re postage.
Many of the packages actually come from CA rather than CN. In addition, bulk rate is a very small amount of money, and a commercial rate is even smaller. Next time you get junk mail, you can be extra happy at how little money it takes for them to send you all that crap (although there's a lot less of it than there used to be, I admit).
The USPS is getting screwed via retirement benefits, and other things, but postage for meritline isn't actually one of the line items that sucks.
Just saying.
@murphy48: just because your card was used on XX date doesn't mean the info was stolen right before that fraudulent transaction.
People who sell credit card info typically sell in HUGE batches of hundreds or thousands of card numbers, so your info could have been hijacked months before.
Dear All, This is the official response from Meritline.com
At Meritline.com you can be assured that your personal and account information is secure, consistent with current industry standards. The importance of security for all Personally Identifiable Information associated with our customers is of utmost concern to us.
We employ the most advanced form of SSL software, 128-bit encryption, on all areas of the site which requires user to enter personal information, including those relating to ordering & status.
This technology allows for the encryption of potentially sensitive information such as name, address and credit card information. All personal information is safely stored in our database systems behind firewall. All Meritline.com servers, including web and database servers, are housed and maintained offsite in secure locations. We regularly scan our sites and servers for internal/external vulnerability with 3rd party service provided by Trustwave®.
(Continued...)
However, you should recognize that no computer system is fully secure and there are inherent risks with any information stored on a computer and transmitted via the internet. To minimize the risk, you should have the latest security features by downloading the most recent version for your browsers, and keep your computer's security software up to date.
For more privacy policy please refer to http://www.meritline.com/t-privacy.aspx
Thank you.
@meritline: A+ on addressing the question head-on. Three cheers. :)
I'm coming a little late to this party, but my professional experience (I work for a large credit union) is that the vast majority of data breaches occurs well down in the food chain, usually with a company that handles the billing requirements for thousands of merchants, rather than at the merchant level. One of the best examples can be studied via a search for [ Heartland Data Theft ]. The Heartland case is also one of the very rare instances in which a large-volume data thief was actually captured and is now in US federal prison. Of course, that could be because he was actually working for the feds when he committed his latest, greatest theft, but maybe that didn't really matter all that much.
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There are very few documented instances of individual companies actually selling credit data, although some are relatively unsophisticated in their own data-security systems. Still, most breaches are large, extremely skillful, remain undiscovered for months, and are created at the second- or third-level of data handling.
There is essentially no connection between where a fraudulent purchase is made or billed to and where the card owner lives or makes a purchase. (In fact, there is often no connection between where legitimate purchases are billed and where the purchase was made. A surprising number of credit/debit card purchases are billed through corporate entities with different names and locations several cities or states away.)
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Additionally, there is usually NO connection between when a card was used and when a fraudulent transaction takes place. In the case of the Heartland data theft, it was several months before Heartland was even aware they'd been victimized, and it was over a year before they notified their clients of the situation. The intervening time included federal investigations to figure out some of the details of the theft. It was almost 18 months before we saw fraudulent activity that we felt was likely to be from the Heartland episode.
Stating that fraud occurred only a short time after a purchase was made at Merchant X is at very best a weak supposition and at worst defamatory.
As for Meritline specifically, absolutely nothing I've read on this thread would give me pause about continuing to purchase from them using my credit card.
Just got a call from the CC company that my number was used in fraudulent activity. I made my first purchase about a week ago from Meritline.
@kerbs17: that's bad... did they say WHAT fraud activity? do you see charges on the CC that aren't yours?
i've had CC companies call me saying they detected fraudulent activity if i'm making charges in another state or just going above my usual daily average.
@kerbs17: Please read my earlier comments about this.
ordered from them many times without incident. Guess I got lucky.
I can honestly say that I've purchased more crap from Meritline than I'd ever admit publicly. More than 1 card, no problems. Although, to be completely honest, I've never had enough worth stealing :) (or should it be :( ?)
@smtatertot13: I didn't know you could use PayPal through Meritline lol - and I just had to get a new debit card and have been too lazy to read the CVV/date from the new one all day. Now I don't have to! You just saved me a few seconds and a small amount of effort. Thanks :D
(every time I talk to you, I find myself wondering if a smater-tot could be a real thing..)
@drchops: glad I could help "educate" you on the paypal/meritline thing ;)
the name originally meant Stage Manager Tater Tot, as I used to be a stage manager and one of my nicknames as a kid was tater tot. i'm no longer a stage manager, nor do people call me tater tot, but i've been using this name on the interweb for 18 years or so, so there's no turning back. i don't even want to know what a smater-tot is lol
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