A Cautionary Tale

I received a telephone call this morning from one of the banks with whom I currently hold a credit card, informing me that a charge in excess of £500 (US$800) had been applied to my account, apparently by a travel agency. The bank's anti-fraud department became suspicious when authorisation was sought for a further £1, a frequent gambit when criminals want to check if a credit card is still valid.

Needless to say, neither transaction was legal, but the reason I raise it here is that the only recent payment I'd made on that particular card was to CentroBill, one of the two companies through which Xhamster sells its webcam tokens (the other is Commerce Gate). In retrospect, I'm relieved I used a relatively obscure piece of plastic, rather than a card I tend to pull out of my wallet every day, because cutting one of those in two - as I was instructed to do with this tainted rectangle - would have been a real pain in the arse.

The irony is, I only bought the tokens because a number of my friends have been badgered into restrict their webcam rooms to 'gold members' (those with tokens in credit) because their content is continually stolen and exploited. In other words, one set of thieves set in motion the circumstances which exposed me to another group of fraudsters. So it goes.

Incidentally, the bank representative I spoke to was careful not to brand CentroBill as in any way corrupt, but suggested this could be the result of individual criminality. However, I would advise everyone to be on their guard against these scumbags.