Yours is the oddest CC story I’ve ever heard. Is the $299.99 intial questionable charge still showing up on each statement? Have you recognized all other charges made? Odd that it would be turned over to fraud without first telling you what the charge was so you could ID it & determine if valid. That’s the first step I’ve encountered when calling about a charge I don’t recognize. Have you reviewed your personal credit report since you signed up for this card? I’d do that & think about freezing your reports (with each reporting agency) after you verify correctness of your personal reports. I think canceling this account was a good idea. You’ll want to make sure the CC company reports the account as ’closed by consumer’.

What does your statement say the $299.99 is for?

What credit card company is this?

There must be some indication of what company charged 299.99, even though it might look like a jumble of partial words or code names. Try googling that, because it might help give you an idea of who or what it was.

I froze my credit after taking out this card in December. Temporarily unfroze it last week when I applied for a Home Depot card to get $100 off the refrigerator I bought.

I used the credit card in question only at Walmart, but my Walmart Purchase History doesn't show it. As I write this, it occurs to me that perhaps the charge was for medications, and possibly the Walmart pharmacy is a separate entity. I ought to be able to check this out myself.

What company issued the credit card?

Does that make a difference?

Is it possible it’s an enrollment fee for the card? Knowing who issued the card might show if they have a fee like rhat?

I called the Walmart pharmacy's national billing number, but couldn't get past an A.I. "person." I did learn that it wasn't a separate pharmacy charge, and appears to be a standard online order. However, I know pharmacy orders can be added to a grocery order, bringing up the total charge. If that's the case, the fraud investigators should have been able to figure it out in minutes.

I've never had anything like that happen to me either, and I have about 1/2 dozen cards, tho I only use a couple of them regularly, the rest have zero balances and I keep them for emergencies.

Are you able to go to the bank's website and check your account there? Mine always show each transaction and the vendor. I check online regularly and have email alerts set up both for balances and charges over $1.

And I am also very curious about which bank/ company this is - knowing would be a good way to avoid doing business with them.

If it's a recurring monthly charge, is it possible it is for something you're actually using and maybe forgot about? I have my internet/cell phone set to pay as a recurring monthly charge to my credit card (that one never varies), along with a utility bill (which does vary).

When you get a new credit card number due to fraud, the credit card issuer will often automatically redirect monthly recurring charges to the new card number.

What's the name associated with the recurring charge? If it's something hinky like Only Fans, then yeah, maybe you have a problem.

(And before anyone rips my head off, I pay off the credit card bill in full every month. I do it this way for the free points.)

Do not wait for a statement - call them a few times a week. Sometimes one person knows more than another. I always jot down names, dates and times that I speak wih customer service.

For the BOT - I say 'give me a human' and I have to say it a few times. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

I'm a bit puzzled about your own info uncertainty you described for April but that aside -

it should really not take longer than a week or two to get inquiries and discrepancies as you describe resolved.

Does the company make a difference? Sure, you can inform and alert others which one seems to be bumbling what occurs multiple times a day for any card issuer.

Good luck.

It was a free card. Two of my friends have it as well, with no fee. One of them had a long wait to receive her card . . . according to the company, they mailed a card to her several times. She received only one of them.

I'm frugal by nature, and I can't imagine a $300/month recurring charge I wouldn't have known about. I've been known to pounce on charges under $10 that I didn't sign up for. 😊

I just priinted out another copy of rhe statement I received in January. The $299 charge just says Walmart.com Merchandise/Consumables, indicating it was a standard online order. One of the other disputed charges was $0.57. I know from past experience that credit card hackers often test out a card number by making a very small purchase, and I thought this might be one of them. But I'm told Walmart sometimes bills sales tax separately. Sometimes yes and sometimes no? Weird.

Elmer, if this is the uncertainty you refer to, my two months in the hospital, along with the illness, created some odd little gaps in my memory for a while. For example, I couldn't remember how to use a couple of Photoshop features, which had been like second nature to me. And I had to refer to my car's owner's manual to find out how to use the front-facing camera, something I'd used often. It took me a while to get back to my former brilliance. 🤪

The credit card company is OnePay via Synchrony Bank.

When a questionable charge shows up on any of my credit cards or if a card is lost or misplaced the company always asks me to review recent transactions online. I check and respond. Easy. Never had a situation like you describe. When a new card is issued it comes with a new number. Do all five cards have the same number? Which one of them is the bill for the disputed charge under? Are you getting five statements each month or just one? I have a few cards through Synchrony and have never had any issues. But I use them for zero interest payment plans for large purchases and not much else.

One Pay is a Walmart Store credit card. I don't care for store credit cards all that much so I don't have any direct experience with that one. I would call Walmart and see if they can do a purchase history under your name and maybe come up with some sort of receipt or invoice for the ammount. There should/may be some sort of order history somewhere in the system.

Wildchild, each of the five cards had a different number, but the only one I used was the first one, and I stopped using it when I received the January statement. What I get each month now is an email reminding me that I have a balance due. That's when I call and spend too long on the phone with them. I think I'll try Shirlpp's suggestion and call a few times a week. I'll plan in advance how to use my time when I'm on hold.

And I'll try getting a detailed purchase history from Walmart. Up to now I've relied on the one history that appears on my account online. Maybe an employee can do better. Thanks!

alisande, I’m sorry if you thought I was being critical of you. I intended to express nothing of the sort. What I meant is that you can’t strongly challenge charges on a credit card without having and expressing with confidence your side of all the facts. Any bit of "I'm not sure but" will take the conversation down a different path than saying "this wasn't my charge, it's a mistake that needs to be reversed".

Good luck.

I'm sorry for your credit card troubles, those are stressful, especially upon recovering ! We have experienced fraud a few times, once was via Synchrony bank.

A call from Synchrony came on our answering machine 'your loan is denied' . we're like 'What?'- we hadn't applied for any loan. It was for 'peter barbershop ', hahaha and we received mail as if it was his business. So weird. Apparently somebody applied for the loan under his name (his SS# had been stolen from a data breach at his job, maybe that was a factor) . I think that for Synchrony to process the loan and deny it was a lack of due diligence on their part to say the least.

We filed a claim with the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (this was years ago) and they contacted the bank, who called my husband and things got straightened out, and they were apologetic The CFPB really helped, although I think things are different in that agency these days if you know what I mean. I think the loan application and denial record was removed from our credit report. It was a good feeling that we were helped with it.

This is what we found about the bank and looking at it today, it seems to have been kept up to date :

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/synchrony-financial.html

Good luck!

I'm wondering how can anyone can be "uncertain" regard to a ccard purchase transaction. I never buy anything without getting a receipt. Anything bought online, I print a receipt or do a screen capture of the finalized transaction. And of course, there's transaction history at the source when one has a user account at online vendors.

Walmart website has a receipt lookup for credit card transactions. Select the store (search by ZIP code or city+state), enter the purchase date, last 4 digits of the ccard, type of card, and receipt amount. Receipt details are returned, including pictures of the items. I don't use WM pharmacy so don't know if it's included in the lookup.

How did you "[learn] about [this] credit card that pays cash back on certain purchases?" Perhaps that particular one, or the way you were led to it, is a scam situation.

I've had two cards (with major cardbanks) for years that "pay" bonus points for purchases which can be redeemed in a few ways including as an account/statement credit.

" I'm wondering how can anyone can be "uncertain" regard to a ccard purchase transaction. "

It's happened to me when the company listed as charging the amount bears no resemblance to the item or service I paid for (because it's a parent company), or the company listed is in weird partial words or codes that aren't identifiable as anything I'd expect. When I google it and see the actual company, I will often say - oh, of course, I paid X license fee to them or something.

Well I can attest that I've seen unfamiliar charges on various accounts that turned out to be legit, but I'd forgotten about them. My memory certainly isn't that great these days. I generally cross check my bank/ credit card or PayPal accounts to find the details of an unfamiliar charge.

I've been doing something similar to dadoes and amassing cash back on card purchases then paying off the balance before interest kicks in.

And I have an account with Walmart, so I can easily look online or on the app to see my purchase history. If the purchase was from Walmart, then it would show up, I'd think. My purchase history shows images of items I bought, even in-store, and it doesn't depend on what I used to pay.

Also know that a lot of, if not most, billing and other company communications are automated nowadays. Apparently, it's very difficult to get machinery to correct itself.

If they told you not to pay, then I'd think you were off the hook, and wouldn't be too concerned. Do you have any kind of record of those calls with the fraud dept.? Does the card company?

Whenever I order something online, I get an email confirmation of the purchase. Then another email saying it's been shipped and then still another when it's been delivered. I would think at the very least you would have an email from when it (whatever "it"is) was ordered.

Lately I have gotten emails from :"Paypal" confirming my purchase of a renewal of some software to the tune of $299, sometimes more. I know I didn't order it and I know Paypal isn't really involved. I can check my Paypal statment separately. I hope you can figure out what this is. I'm sorry about your recent illness.

When I get my credit card statement (I like to get a paper statement), I check to verify the purchases and if it is for something like a coat or some other tangible and I don't recognize it, I go through my emails and I find what I bought and I write it on the statement.

I suppose I'm toward the unusual in that I track every ccard and checking acct transaction and enter it into personal finance software. I have data in it back to 1997. Recurring bills and autopays are in the reminder/scheduler so I know when they're coming due. I get a receipt for every storefront purchase. I print a receipt, or nowadays to .pdf or save a screenshot and convert it to a .pdf, for every online purchase, emails for autopay confirmations. I also track and enter my investment transactions (dividends, etc.) every day that they occur. Am I obsessed with bookkeeping? Maybe, but nothing happens without my knowledge.

I've been doing the same for my mother since a year or so before dad died so I could get familiar in anticipation of that event. I was executor so I know everything they had/she has. Text notifications for her ccard transactions come to my phone. I have online access to her bank acct, ccard, brokerage service, SS, etc. She doesn't "do" computers and isn't experienced on discerning scams. She once took a call from a scammer asking if she received a new M'care card and she read-off the number, then panicked and ended the call. I was locked-out the next time I tried accessing it. Someone apparently/presumably tried to login, or maybe set up access on the expectation that an elderly woman wouldn't have already done so. They failed since access already existed but the account was locked pending password recovery, which I could easily do since my phone is on it for verification, not hers. Email addresses are required nowadays for so many things, I have hers set up on my computer.

Honestly yeah, dadoes, that’s probably unusual in this day and age. Kind of defeats the convenience of technology to fall back on all this manual work.

But I wouldn’t encourage you to change. It’s money, and you should do what’s comfortable.

Some time before my father died he went over the spreadsheets he kept for his investments. After showing us this and that and the other thing, he kind of acknowledged that there was no real need for it. When my sister took over, she said there was nothing on those spreadsheets that wasn’t in his statements. The spreadsheets were discontinued.

I remember when my parents were getting up there in age, my brother came home and along with my oldest sister, they went around to the various and sundry banks, closing and consolidating. My dad was from the era of banks giving gifts for opening accounts and he liked that. :) I got my first set of silverware from one of his new accounts. It made his passing so much easier and saved my mom tons of angst. She came to live with me her last couple of years so the family house had already been sold and she could live peacefully without worrying about anything really. Neither were technology savvy. My mom didn't even use the microwave another sister bought for them one year. No cell phones either. A much simpler way of life for them.

I would like to know what kind of credit card it is, too, in case I have one. If I do, I won’t use it because something sounds fishy.

Incompetence can hit any organization. I was looking at my checking account recently and saw a $850 check debit. I didn’t recognize it (I’m not dadoes!) so I clicked in it, but it did not show my check image. I switched from app to website, still nothing. Called customer service, a woman needed a few minutes to pull the image archive, told me what the check was, all good. But why couldn’t I see the check? She had me clear cache, switch browsers, nothing helped. She transferred me to technical support.

Well, TS came on and told me that viewing check images has NEVER been an option, that the only way to get check info is to call in and have images pulled from archive. I bank at two banks so I admitted I was only 99.9% sure I’ve pulled images, not 100%, but he was very insistent. I told him this would be reason enough for me to leave the bank. Whatever.

Later that day, coincidentally (I think) I got a call from the RM from my local branch, just checking in. I gave her an earful. She said of course I should be able to see my checks on the app, but offered me to call directly and she’d pull anything I need.

Some days later as I was thinking about this I went back on my app. Pulled check images no problem. 🤷‍♀️

So the TS guy had very confidently given wrong information.

Citibank, if it matters.

dadoes, it sounds like you're using a superseded version of personal finance software that no longer allows direct downloads from banks and financial institutions. As a result, you're doing a ton of work. I'd never get myself into such a situation but as food suggests, it apparently works for you and that's what matters.

What works for me as a time and labor savings tool is Quicken. The best $100 a year cost I have. I use little else of the program's capabilities besides using it to download all transactions from banks, credit cards and financial institutions. I do that about every 10 days. As a result, I don't need to look at any statements (and don't get any) nor keep receipts. Errors or things to question pop up immediately because I can see all transactions for all accounts at once on a chrono list. Or with a click, the view changes to transactions in each account alone (which dadoes likely can do too but it takes him a lot of work to have the info there).

Cash management between accounts can be done with just a glance too because the information is there to see by just starting the program. No work required to produce it. I can get annual tax return info (deductions) in less than 10 minutes.

Paper and time spent to maintain files and access info are completely eliminated. I consider the need to keep track of finances to be simply a requirement of oversight. It isn't really productive time in and of itself. For me, the best way is the way that does what's needed in the least amount of time.

We all have systems that work for us (hopefully) and there are lots of choices.

" I didn't think you were being critical of me. "

Thank you and again, sorry.

You're one of my favorites here and long have been. If I haven't said that before, I've said it now and hopefully implied that message over the years.

Yay, Alisande!!!!! I'm so glad my procrastination helped yours!!! It does really come in handy from time to time. Happy to be of service!! I'm glad it wasn't anything nefarious.

YAY!!!!! So glad it is resolved. 😊

Great that you figured it out. A big relief to find it’s not fraud, I’m sure!

Of course all reputable people want to pay what’s owed for their purchases but if it had been fraud, she’d have an extra $300 in her bank account.

Thank you for the nice comment, Elmer.

I went off to pay my bill and be done with it, but it didn't quite work out that way. Calling this bank is always a trial because they start out by telling me the phone number I'm calling from isn't the one they have on file. So I give them my other number, and they tell me that's not it either. Every call starts out this way. Every call also involves multiple transfers to different people. But I stayed more cheerful than usual this time because I looked forward to getting the balance off the books.

Finally I reached a person who told me the total amount I owed. I was assured that this was a final figure, clearing me of any obligation to the bank. I paid it, and that was that . . . until today, when I was notified in an email that I owe the bank $6.38.

Some days it just doesn't pay to even get out of bed......................