You could have a key-logger on your machine. It's like a virus that runs in the background and keeps track of all of the keys you type. It's very easy to pick out a credit card number from a long string of data. I'd make sure you run adware and virus checks regularly. AVG and Avast are great free virus software and Spybot and ad-aware are great free adware/malware programs.
WARNING: If you purchased from Rue La La recently, watch your credit card
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this actually happened to both my friend and I. We cross checked which sites we used our credit cards at and turned out it was Ruelala, this happened last year (someone tried to use my card to buy some car parts in Japan (online?) the amount was like 4k) thank god it didn't go through, and my friend's card was used at some store in Japan, too, the amount was 6k..thank god we both caught that early and got our cards cancelled...I can't believe they still have this problem! I've purchased from Ruelala a few times (last one was 2 weeks ago) now I need to go check my credit card statement...
Ultimately the only way you can protect yourself is to check your statements regularly. My dbf and I had our cc # stolen when we were at an airport restaurant getting ready to leave for Australia last winter. The server took the # down when they took the card back to pay. We then got on a flight for a 10 day trip to Australia and came home to 20K in fraudulent charges! Luckily we were not on the hook for it and the cc company went after the guy and caught them. But it just goes to show even when you think your completely safe youre not. But as long as you check your statements often (we check them now every couple days) you'll catch anything right away (especially those $1 charges).
I had a similar experience last year, only that was my permanent credit card, not a one time use. Fortunately my bank acted promptly to stop the payment, but I had to sign some kind of affidavit to the bank stating that I have not made the unauthrized fraudulent charge of US$5,000 on some auto parts!
I had posted about this here,too, but at the time I couldn't be 100% sure if my cc number was stolen from Ruelala because I had purchased from other online stores,too, but the fraudulent charge happened shortly after I made a purchase on Ruelala, and the same thing happened to a friend of mine who had purchased from Ruelala during the same sale,too.
Maybe we should all write to Ruelala about it since it has happened to quite a few of us, and in the OP's case, the one time use credit card numbers really are solid proofs that the problem came from within Ruelala!
I had posted about this here,too, but at the time I couldn't be 100% sure if my cc number was stolen from Ruelala because I had purchased from other online stores,too, but the fraudulent charge happened shortly after I made a purchase on Ruelala, and the same thing happened to a friend of mine who had purchased from Ruelala during the same sale,too.
Maybe we should all write to Ruelala about it since it has happened to quite a few of us, and in the OP's case, the one time use credit card numbers really are solid proofs that the problem came from within Ruelala!
Bank of America calls is "ShopSafe". If you log in to your online banking and look at your cc account, there should be a link called "Use ShopSafe" near the top of the "account activity" tab.
I only use my mac for online banking/shopping. Is that something that is prevalent on macs?
I shop on line regularly so I would assume if somebody did have a keylogger on my machine, they would be trying to steal all my virtual cc numbers, not just the two I used at Rue La La.
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I also always use a Mac, and I don't think viruses/software like that is as prevalent. PCs are much easier for hackers to get into, because they coding is easier to get into and change, and it's been out there for a long time, so even a rookie can do it. FOr Macs it's much harder, but it still happens.
As much as it is LESS LIKELY to get a virus on a Mac, there are still a few out there. I would never consider the OS type to be the determining factor on whether you'll get hacked or be hack-able in that scenario.
True, but it seems like quite the coincidence that it happened only to the numbers for use at Rue La La and not those for other merchants. I wouldn't expect the crooks to be so discriminating with the numbers they try to steal if they did have access to my computer.
It's less likely that a hacker would be on your computer if you have a Mac. It's not something that doesn't happen, but is definitely less likely. I've been on a Mac for 5 years (home computer, 2 of them) and have yet to have a virus. On my PC that I had in college I got viruses all the time, and even got them on my work computer in a secure environment.
If the problem occurred on RueLaLa's end, then it has nothing to do with your computer, but more likely someone is on their system, or stealing numbers.
If the problem occurred on RueLaLa's end, then it has nothing to do with your computer, but more likely someone is on their system, or stealing numbers.