I woke up this morning to find 48 credit card transaction messages from NBK. It was a bit confusing at first because my iPhone had grouped up all the messages and given me a summary and I thought at first it was one declined transaction. But, I quickly realized it was more than one transaction and that my card had been compromised. The first thing I did was log into my NBK app and block the card until I could wake up and figure out what was going on.
Based on what I could tell, only 1 transaction might have gone through and it was for a small amount of $4.99, but then it was later credited back to my account. Everything else seems to have gotten declined.
I called NBK up to report my card as being compromised and to issue a new one. The employee checked and turns out NBK had already blocked my card before I did because of suspected fraudulent transaction which is why all the transactions had gotten declined. They’re now going to issue me a new card which I should get before I travel next week. He mentioned it takes 3-4 working days so I should be fine.
Last year my brand new debit card was compromised and two transactions had gone through which were returned back to me a week later. I barely use this credit card that got compromised since I have another prepaid one I use for most of my transactions since that one gets me miles. So I was pretty lucky that NBK blocked my card as soon as they detected anything weird or else I might have been out of a good chunk of money just before my trip.
29 replies on “My credit card was compromised”
*They’re now going to issue me a new card which I should get before I travel next week.
Thanks
Did you this credit card on shein, temu or alibaba? I am suspicious that people who use these services are more prone to this.
I’ve used these sites you’ve mentioned for years and years and never had an issue.
Yes
Nope I used my prepaid card on AliExpress. AliExpress isn’t going to try and steal my credit card.
They’re not going to steal your credit card, but these things might happen for several reasons even without falling for a phishing scam, most likely purchasing from a website with poor security practices, malware, or a data breach or theft, which happens to reputable companies. Usually western companies would announce this and provide support, but I doubt Chinese companies follow these pro consumer practices.
You would actually be shocked at the level of customer service you will get from the chinese companies, they are super keen to make their service and businesses well known, some apps even have an auto translator to communicate in case the support tech does not speak english.
The same thing happened to me last week with my debit card. All the transactions were for small amounts from companies I’d never heard of. I’m always very cautious with online purchases, and I still can’t figure out how they got my card details.
Close call!! Which prepaid card do you use for miles?
The Avios, gives me miles with Qatar Airways. But don’t think it’s that great, I think I heard CBK’s miles card gives double what I get with NBK. NBK gives 3 points with every KD locally and 5 points when used abroad.
Oh cool I have the same one. The CBK one looks tempting – essentially the same perks as NBK but better
Seems that banks in Kuwait started to implement better fraud prevention and they now focus on transactions for small amounts or “zero” amounts, which are used to check the validity of the card.
Credit card fraud is super common. Happened to me once because I accidenltly connected to a wrong wifi at the airport labeled as “Free_GVA_Wifi” instead of “GVA_wifi_free” as there were 10 other networks named similarly. Got a few notifications saying 0.00 GBP has been deducted and a few minutes after, the hacker took almost 100 KD from my credit card but luckily the money is insured so money came back in 61 days approx.
This happened to my prepaid card thankfully! I canceled the card after I came back from travel but somehow still get declined messages for the blocked card!
yeah been getting declined messages all day as well
Hey man ! I wasnt done spending it in the gentlemens club why did you stop it ? I was using it for a good cause.
This reminds me to check on a fraud transaction from Shein a few months ago, it was 7.99, purchase made at 3 am, I sleep by 10. NBK said they would investigate but I never heard anything back from them.
Mark any idea on how you think the card was compromised?
No idea
One of the services that saved his card probably had a data leak or breach of some sort. I wish we had something like privacy.com that lets us make a unique virtual credit card for each service. Using something like this you know exactly what service leaked your card.
Hey – the same issue happened to my dad. NBK too!!
hello dear… i have the same issue but gulf bank card… even with the atm card not only with credit card… i still have unknown transactions on my prepaid credit card which were declined due to insufficient balance… twice i had to to replace my atm card with 2 weeks because of fraud transactions… i m in kuwait and my atm card waz used in makkah cafe saudi arabia… but even i blocked the card by calling the customer service but the transaction go through… i never used my atm outside kuwait… my case is still pending with gulf bank and i never heard anything from them ever since… the money is gone which is a loss… since then i try to use cash as much possible… except the government bodies where atm is mandatory…so i believe that non of the bank cards are secured… i have purchasing from shein and aliexpress from many years but never had a issue except since few months…
Reset/wipe out your laptops and phones. Sounds like there’s persistent malware on your devices collecting data. Change all your account passwords and your WiFi password too.
Are they going to charge you for issuing a new card?
not sure, they didn’t mention anything and my new card is getting delivered today
You are clearly very lucky. I had my debit card compromised and ten transactions of about 30 to 40 kd were made from Zurich…NBK were incredibly unhelpful insisting I had revealed an OTP which wasn’t true… they told me to go to the police internet fraud office at Surra…how stupid did I look when I actually drove to Surra… Basically the fraudsters kept taking amounts of roughly 30 kd till my account was emptied….and as for NBK…. they blamed me for using apple pay…..I have never ever owned an apple product…
is there a way to delete the card info from all the websites it has been used, i have a prepaid card and i cant recall where all i have used it and seen unknown declined transactions this reason i don’t keep balance in my card and recharge only when required. annoying but cant take a chance.
I had a similar issue with my credit card from NBK, where i got msgs around 3am on successful purchase in the XOF currency (3 transactions in 6 mins, stopped with insufficient balance). Took about a month for NBK to come back (they mentioned it could take that long) and thankfully got a full refund. The guy on the other end of the call (think fraud/ risk division?) mentioned it could be a compromise from a site that had my card saved for renewals/ subscription payments, which were quite a few. Cancelling the credit card helped with removing the card off everywhere, even places I had forgotten about (jibjab!)