Thought it might be a good idea to share this here, to make sure as many people as possible know about it…

On Tuesday I received a call from someone claiming to be ‘Ben Bradford’, a promotions agent from a travel agent called Best USA Vacations, and that I had won a trip to Florida and the Bahamas as part of a promotion for people who used their credit cards to pay for traveling.

I was very suspicious, but a part of me kept hoping that maybe, just maybe it might be true – and after I checked out their very real looking website and was assured multiple times that, after all, one could cancel any illegal payments made with a credit card, I let my hope overrule my better judgement and gave him my credit card number. Then ‘Ben’ described my ‘price’ in many details, before turning me over to his ‘supervisor’ Michael, who congratulated me before transferring me to their ‘security department’. After being kept on hold for several minutes, my brain finally managed to overrule that stubborn bit of hope and I hung up and immediately called MasterCard.

And voilà – someone had just tried to get a payment of $500 approved! Luckily the request had been recognized by MasterCard’s early warning system and had been rejected – because, as I was told now, since October 05, MasterCard refuses liability for payments made after giving up one’s credit card number over the phone. I was told to cut my credit card in half and that I’d be sent a replacement for free.

So all in all I was left feeling foolish but without any real damage done. I mean, the website looked so real – and even the US phone number they give you is answered by a ‘travel agent’, as I found out when I called it to give them a piece of my mind – I needed the catharsis, so it was worth the overseas call… 🙂

A friend sent me the link to this blog post, which shows that apparently that sort of scam has been going on for a long time, under different names, first in the US and now (since probably Americans have been put on their guard) in Europe. So be careful – those guys are very good at what they do!