I received a notice that my credit card number had been used in Europe to purchase a trip. My wife told her friend who asked her if she bought gas at BJS in Wallingford. They had been informed that their card had also been used in Europe.
Corporate headquarters was not helpful in straightening out the problem which I had already contacted them once before. I just wanted to know if the problem had been fixed. The man I talked to had a very thick accent and was in a room full of people speaking a foreign language.
I asked him if he was calling from India or the Phillippines. He said no, the United States. I think he was fibbing. He did not know about crooks inserting their own recording devices on gas pumps. I have seen other peculiar things taking place at the gas pumps such as two cars pull up and a guy in one car uses his card two fill his and the other guy's.
I will no longer purchase gas at Bjs. I had to get a new credit card and had to inform other businesses and services that I had a new card. Hello Costo and good riddance to BJS.
Robert
Irvine,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, December 05, 2019
You had your card compromised. It happens. Not saying you shouldn't be concerned about it. But the reality is that regardless of what you are being told by your Wife's friend, unless that Gas Pump was the first and only place you have ever used your card you cannot guarantee that it was at that location the card was compromised.
As I said, if anecdotally a "Friend" just happen to have the same thing happen and claims it happened at BJ’s. Either you two just are the lucky ones, or there is a systematic problem. Now, if it is systematic the banks would be having multiple calls and they have computer processes superior to two friends saying that it happened. Within seconds if there is a pattern they would know it and they would be on the phone with BJ's corporate talking to their Security people to get it fixed.
Now, when you call any Customer “lack of” Service department, they are really nothing more than someone reading a script. It doesn’t matter if they are in India, the US, or on Mars. Unless their management someone wrote something down authorizing them to talk about it...they are going to give you the exact answers that they did. Even if they know for a fact there was an issue.
I have seen other peculiar things taking place at the gas pumps such as two cars pull up and a guy in one car uses his card two fill his and the other guy's.
- What's weird about that, the only "RipOff" there is the one that is being done to BJ's. That is it appears that someone who is a member is letting a non-member use some of their benefits. That's really no different (but probably more obvious) than the person who just lets someone "borrow" their membership card.
The real rip-off is the savings people think they are getting. The wholesale club gas prices are generally at most 10-30 cents cheaper. On a 20 gallon tank that may be a savings of at most $6 if you totally fill it up. If you notice a lot of the cars in line are not 20 gallon tanks, and are spending 20-30 minutes in line waiting for a pump. This is really no different than someone who spends 15-20 minutes driving around to find a gas station that is 1-2 cents cheaper per gallon.