What do you think of giving your bank card number to a free online credit checking website then taking all your money out of your checking account?
After my brother signed up for a free credit checking website they stole thirty dollars from his checking account and he had to block his account to keep them from stealing anymore money.
I’m thinking of signing up myself then taking all my money out of checking account before they can steal any of my money to teach the thieves a lesson.
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
14 Answers
I’m sorry, that “teaches the thieves” how?
Report it to the FBI or FTC, why risk a charge from the bank for an insufficient funds fee.
Nah. Too much of a possibility that they could figure out how to screw you over anyway. I wouldn’t even bother.
ETA- read the question again.
Even if you take all of your money out you will incur overdraft charges from your bank.
That’s just foolishness and won’t get you anything but hassles.
I’d be looking instead for some small box he failed to uncheck, whereby he agreed to something he didn’t realize he was agreeing to. My son got dinged for $14.95 per month from one of those scams before he realized it wasn’t legit.
What if I closed out my checking account instead of taking my money out?
I’ll just open up a new account.
That’s still a lot of work for not a lot of benefit. Contact your local State Attorney’s office and file a complaint. They can combine all complaints and file a lawsuit.
What exactly would they be learning? That people will waste their own time and effort trying to set them up for an extremely small “got-ya” to some faceless company?
@Jeruba Even if he agreed to something he wasn’t aware of he isn’t necessarily responsible for holding up his end of the bargain. Something similar happened to me and I reported them and got my money back. They scammed me through and through but I didn’t let them get away with it.
@beancrisp Have your brother report them to his bank. Then you can also report them to the Better Business Bureau and heck anywhere else that will listen.
If they really did something wrong, report them to the Better Business Bureau or some other relevant authority.
If they try and take money out of your account when there’s none in there you’ll be charged an “insufficient funds” fee by your bank, regardless of whether the money-grab was legitimate or not.
Even if you close the account you’ll be charged the fee because you are responsible for the information you give out about your account. It’s like if you close down a credit card, but you’ve given that card info to, say, a video rental place, and then you don’t return a video and you don’t return their calls, well they can charge that credit card of yours even though you’ve cancelled it, and you will owe the money. (True story.)
And in all likelihood your brother skipped the fine print: in all likelihood the money-grab was perfectly legal, so if you follow in his footsteps you’ll only owe them money and they could take legal action against you for not paying.
@therookie I think that’s a little excessive (saying never shop online with your credit card). If you’re smart it’s perfectly easy to shop online with your credit card without posing any risk to yourself. Blanket rules like that just encourage people to stop thinking for themselves. Anyway, how would you buy those prepaid gift cards for those online shops if not with a credit card?
Get yourself one of those refillable Visa cards at WalMart. You can’t lose any more than you actually put on the card.
@nicobanks
you can buy the prepaid charge cards at any major retailer and you pay in cash.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
