Over the past few years I’ve had a few incidents of credit card fraud, resulting in my credit card provider canceling my card and re-ssuing a new one.
A few days ago, a woman on an olympic weightlifting Facebook group asked if anyone had suffered credit card fraud after making purchases from the USA Weightlifting (USAW) site. She specifically mentioned fraudulent Starbucks gift card purchases made on her account and I immediately thought of my case.
Over the years I have used my credit card often on the USAW site and purchased apparel, meet registrations, annual membership, a coaching certification, and Masters Camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. I specifically recall having fraudulent Starbucks cards purchased on my affected credit card.
I commented on the Facebook post as did several others that had the same type of fraud and all had used their affected credit card on the USAW site. Perhaps an official from USAW was on the Facebook group and looked into it or perhaps one of the group members contacted USAW.
Today, August 20, 2015, I received an email from USAW:
Dear USA Weightlifting Member,
According to our records you have purchased goods or services on USA Weightlifting’s website in recent months. We have learned that incidents of credit card fraud have been reported from some members after using one of our online processors. These reports specify small charges for Starbucks card reloads
We have investigated the reports and believe that the breach has occurred in MyCart, the shopping cart that we have used for many years for the purchase of coaching course registrations, banners, event merchandise/tickets/banquets, camps and miscellaneous payments. We do not believe that the problem stems from HangAStar, our on-line member and event registration system, but we have made reports to both service providers.
We are now in the process of rapidly moving all of our credit card processing from MyCart to an alternative provider.
We encourage you to be vigilant in reviewing your financial statements and report any unauthorized charges to the issuing institution.
Most importantly, we apologize for any inconvenience and want you to know that we are actively working to resolve the situation by changing providers.
Yours in Sport,
USA Weightlifting
For those of you that have recently purchased goods or services on the USAW website, keep an eye on your credit card statements for suspicious activity.
I’ll try to learn more about this specific merchant account provider mentioned by USAW, MyCart, and I’ll add any updates I have to this post.
