What is the first step when someone uses your credit card fraudulently? should I file a police report?

You are right. A police report is the first step. Make sure you tell the credit card company, unless the bank already did it.

Contact the issueing bank of the card !st, then call the police. The Bank should put an automatic hold on the account, stopping any and all transactions on the card.
I had a card stolen while in the hospital, the ones who took it called my room to say that my card was tried at a local ATM this person said that they were from the Card Co. wanted to confirm my pin. I was sick, not crazy, told the guy I would call him back. I called my Card Co, a stop was issued, the theives didn’t get a pack of gum off of my card. All in a time frame of 15 minutes.

You didn’t indicate whether or not this person was a member of your household as it makes a difference.

Place a fraud alert on your credit file – it will last 3 months. Notify the fraud department of your credit card company. I believe the reference to your bank being unable to do anything to your account is that the bank can not credit the fraudulant amount back to you until it shows up as a debit. This is correct, but you can alert them that it has occured and place a hold on the account, if not actually having the card closed and reissued under another number.

The activity is criminal. If you don’t file a charge with the police, they will do nothing for you. I would absolutely report the crime. Do you have reason to believe that your Identity has been compromised in another way? If so, I can recommend an excellent monitoring product – call 800=859-1928 x 100 and I’ll give you more details.

which ever credit card you have you notify the company to report it,and most definitely make a police report. make sure you put a stop on the credit card so it won’t happen the second time.

all the best hope you soon get it resolved.

When you talk with people make sure you get their names and if possible employee id numbers. This can be useful in the future for reference about what different people tell you. If it was me i would try calling back and see about putting a freeze on my account or something to where it can’t be used between now and the time transactions start posting to the account. I’ve never had to go through this but it seems like a police report would only help you.

Yeah you have to file a report with the police then preced with the credit card comoing by waiting until they have posted a month later.Also they can find out where the merchandise was shipped to if they signed for it through fedx or UPS or post office then they have committed idenity theft on top of the fraud.

Yes, file a police report. The documentation is irrefutable and will come in handy when dealing with your credit card company, merchant and/or credit bureaus.

Some local PDs think of this as busy work and will either refuse or try to take the report over the phone. It’s worth your time to actually file a report in person by going to the station. Why go through all this? You need to create a paper trail in the event of a dispute. You didn’t say how someone made the charge; but once one card is compromised your other cards could be at risk. Make sure to watch over your credit report as a victim of fraud – you don’t want this episode showing up as a charge you never paid! If the police department won’t budge, ask them to file a miscellaneous report. 2nd step is document everything – phone calls (to whom, what was discussed, what you were told), letters on the matter, copies of your credit report. And keep the file – mistakes are made all the time with credit reports. For more help you can visit TransUnion credit bureau’s Fraud Victim Assistance Department.