Apologies for not posting in old thread/s about this but I feel this need to be brought to the attention of Avsim users and Moderators

Ok so for the first time in 20 years of online purchasing of sim products, this has now happened to me. 

On 6th May 2021 I purchased two airports (Walvis Bay and Windhoek) plus Aerosoft Lukla P3D from Simmarket. No purchases for 3months prior to that, and after that earlier  March purchase(PMDG) no strange transactions. Starting May 9th (3 days after the Simmarket purchase) many transactions that I did not initiate went through that card (I only picked up on these reviewing my statement at month-end June; wish I had done it end May but its been a busy time for me the last two months).

• -several small amounts in  one day (on several days) to Youtube. Look like Superchat payments. Never made those ever.
• -two monthly amounts to Netflix (amount is the same as their "premium" monthly plan). I have never used Netflix. They did not register an account in my email, so maybe they have made a mistake here using their Netflix account but paying with fraudulent online card details.
• -a few payments to Beanstalk-AWS. Never knew what that was until I looked it up. Whoever it is, is a computer nerd/hacker/programmer)
• - largest payments to Walmart (again I have never been to a physical Walmart store or ever ordered anything online from them)
• - possibly to relieve the stress of his/her criminal behavior the perpetrator favors herbal remedies. Several purchases from Herbalife, (again I have never used them).

Now previous threads about this  before degenerated into some victim-blaming so let me make it clear that;

•  - my computer is well-secured and protected (firewall, antivirus, antimalware)
• - when I make purchase using that card it always asks me to enter a One Time Password (OTP), which I get via email or phone. This person was somehow able to circumvent that. I have received no spurious SMS messages or Emails, or warnings about strange logons to my email account. The fraudster may be a computer hacker who can somehow divert these requests as soon as made? Or is someone at the card-clearing-house (Stripe) involved?

Going over the previous list of people posting on this problem;

• Many are fairly to extremely confident this happened shortly after a purchase at Simmarket. I am 100% sure.
• Come from countries around the world (Australia, Canada, America and myself a South African bank)
• These have been going on since June 2017, without remedy, and strangely all occur around June (whoever it is has a spending spree then - holiday?)

I was lucky as I have a monthly limit set (in ZAR so the person making these must have been very disappointed with his/her choice of card)

My card was almost maxed out end-April. The fraudster hit the max on 28th June

The bank was clearly suspicious as I never use my card in this way. Though listed on my statements the amounts are noted as "uncleared payments" so can be reversed after validation of my claims.

Now this matter DOES warrant investigation. After several years this is ongoing and in all cases is reported after Simmarket transactions! The argument that all Simmarket users should be affected does not wash with me. The person/s is clever enough to pick his victims, and it looks like timing as well, and does not want to go all-out on everyone as he/she would definitely get caught.

I have nothing against Simmarket, used them for years, so if anything only disappointed that I cannot and will not safely use them again.

Please AVSIM users be very wary of making credit card purchases at Simmarket until this is resolved. I cannot say do not, but if you do, watch your statements carefully in the following days so that you can prevent any further fraud if detected.

Regards to all and keep safe

Rob

I wonder if there is any links to other people on Avsim having card fraud issues after purchasing thru Simarket?

 

Have you raised this with Simmarket? I have had a series of annoying small transactions go through a couple of times but have no evidence it is linked to Simmarket. Actually, with the regularity I find myself spending money there, I'd expect it to have happened more often if there was a flaw in their security.

To be honest, that pattern of spending suggests to me it is not related to any merchant including Simmarket. You say a number of small transactions went through first, that sounds like speculative steps to try and identify a randomly selected number that is current and valid. Once identified, they then use the number for other spending.

If they were harvesting details from Simmarket, they would have the card numbers already so would not need to to make those small purchases, they would know the already the card is valid.

Edited July 3, 20214 yr by Ian S