Lydia, I would immediately call the 800 number on the back of your credit cards and report this. Someone may have stolen the numbers and are checking out your credit in order to use them for a very large purchase.

If she's had the charge for 3 months with no other unusual acivity, then no one stole any numbers. Someone clicked on something they shouldn't have.

Are the $12.95 charges showing up on your bank statement?

To order a credit report you need to provide your name, address, social security number, etc. You just can't go to each of the 3 credit reporting bureaus and request a report without providing the required personal information.

If the $12.95 charges are appearing on your bank statement, there will be the name of the company along with a 1-800 number. If this is what is happening, just call the number and tell them you don't know what the charges are for and please remove them and credit your account. This happened to me recently. Bought some hair products on-line and the next thing I knew I was receiving a monthly magazine that I never subscribed to. Double-checked my bank statements, and there were 2 charges. I called the 1-800 number, cancelled the subscriptions, and got a refund.

I take it that you are being billed for a subscription to a credit report service. But have you actually received a report???

You gotta be really careful with those ads from creditreport.com. It states first month free and then $12.95 per month afterward.

If no one ordered a report, call your credit card company immediately. They should have been called when the first charge appeared. At that point, you might have been able to contest the charge and have gotten it eliminated. At this date, you can probably get the charges stopped, but you will likely be stuck for past charges because that money has already been paid out by the credit card company.

To clarify.. the 3 charges were all on the same day on this month's credit card statement that I got yesterday. We did not order a report and we did not get any.

I'm thinking we must have checked a box somewhere that we shouldn't have.

To order a credit report you need to provide your name, address, social security number, etc. You just can't go to each of the 3 credit reporting bureaus and request a report without providing the required personal information. Thanks Sephia! That makes me feel better.

I'll make the calls today! Thanks.

Quick update! Called creditreport.com and they can't even find our credit card on file anywhere.. so I have to call the corporate office tomorrow. The credit card department I need to talk to to get the charges taken off my CC was closed today also.

So... more phone calls tomorrow.

Are these charges on you credit card? If so, call the 800 # and disbute them, or if all else fails, report your card stolen/lost. They should follow up and that should save you all those phone calls.

This just seems so very weird Lydia. I hope you get it all taken care of tomorrow.

I wouldn't bother with trying to call creditreport.com any more - I'd just call your credit card company directly and tell them that those are fraudulent charges on your card. Officially dispute the charges, and get the card number changed so the charges don't keep recurring.

UPDATE: I called Mastercard this morning and they said the charges had been made using our old credit card (one that had been canceled by them about 6 months ago). We had since been reissued new cards with new numbers (this is the statement these charges showed up on). Since the woman at Mastercard had the old CC number and I didn't she called creditreport.com and we were forwarded to the fraud department. Turns out the 3 reports were issued for people I don't know. Thankfully none of my husband's or my information was on these reports. Those 3 accounts got canceled and we are getting a refund.

Glad I check my credit card statement otherwise I'd be getting those 3 bills monthly since it is a subscription. I don't like the fact that my old card could still be used this way. I am also wondering if creditreport.com will forward the info to the police?

Credit card numbers can be accessed by crooks so many ways nowadays--not just by someone picking your purse or going through trash; a lot of computer-savvy people steal entire customer database info (like what happened a few years ago with TJMaxx/HomeGoods/Marshalls).

Glad the woman could help you. Did she say whether she'd flag that old account for further activity?

Unfortunately, the credit card companies never tell you how your account was compromised--by whom, to what extent.

A few years ago, I got a letter from my credit card company saying my account had been compromised by a website and that I needed to fill out a form and that my account would be closed and a new one opened (it was legit, not a scam to get personal info). But no one would tell me which website it was so I could stop doing business with it! That account changeover really messed up some of my automatic debit payments, I'll tell you, even tho the credit card company said everything would be transferred smoothly...

Glad the woman could help you. Did she say whether she'd flag that old account for further activity?

I don't think they should allow any charges from the old card. They canceled that card because of suspicious activity they saw (we had no idea of anything going on), wouldn't you think they wouldn't allow it to be used at all? The more I think about it the more it irks me. I think I'll switch banks and cancel the card I have.

Lydia, I'm glad you jsut posted that. It's what I was thinking, too ... if the account is CLOSED (doesn't matter who closed it, you or them) then it shouldn't be accepting any charges. But ESPECIALLY if they're the ones who closed it for suspicious activity! Good grief! it's like asking the crooks to continue on their merry way!

I'm glad you got it figured out Lydia. What you need to do now is find a credit union to deal with. We've never had any trouble at all since we changed to one over twenty years ago. I'll never deal with a bank again.

I'm glad you got it solved, Lyd, and isn't it weird how crud like this always gets discovered on Saturdays when things are closed and you have to stew over them for the whole weekend? It never fails.

Yeah, major flaw in their system if they're letting charges thru on a closed out card. I'd have a real issue with that. Be sure to tell them WHY you're canceling them!

We had a similar situation a couple of years ago, a card that was inactive, had never been activated ended up with charges, couldn't find out how or why. Account was closed.

Lydia, call one the 3 credit reporting agencies (Equifax or TransUnion or Experian) and put a "FRAUD ALERT" on your credit report. It does NOT cost anything and no one can check your credit report without your permission. I was advised by my employer than some confidential paperwork had not been destroyed properly. Of course this involved thousands of employees but they had to tell all of us to take this action.

I'm saying to call just 1 because the one you call will notify the other 2 companies and you will get letters in the mail from all 3 credit reporting agencies that this has been done. It might make you feel a little better. You can renew the "fraud alert" every 90 days will NO COST to you.

Good luck and thanks for sharing your story. I've had a couple of strange things happen to me (in my many years of owning credit cards) and it just makes me so angry!

Susan