I’ve been done a few times over the years, $10k late last year was the biggest. CBA were relatively good in resolving it. They replaced the card very quickly, but this time round it had maxed out the card which meant I couldn’t use it or re-sign up any of my services to the new card number until they cleared the bogus charges which took about 10 days. It was clearly fraud but they had to go through the motions and couldn’t/wouldn’t release the credit untli they had done their thing.
It’s very interesting this time as it was a local merchant I’d never used where all the were made. Also I use my Apple Watch for almost all transactions so that card very very rarely leaves my wallet. Even then it’s in my hand while I tap… so I guess maybe it was read by a passerby with a card reader?? In any case, CBA didn’t seem at all interested when I handed them the police report and contact number for the Seargent on the case and told them this was an organised attack that had been used multiple times and was under investigation. Seems they just write it off and move on.
Once upon a time CBA provided a Mastercard AND an AMEX with different card numbers. I used the AMEX online and the Mastercard in the real world figuring that if I got compromised it would be online and cancelling/replacing that ‘online’ card wouldn’t mess with my day to day activities. Sadly they stopped doing that so I only have a singe card these days.
I have heard ads for Privacy a bunch of times. They provide virtual credit cards which can be locked to particular merchants and/or individual transactions limits and/or monthly limits. So create a card for Netflix for no more than $20 a month and it doesn’t matter if they ever get hacked because they are the only merchant that can use that number and it’s for a capped amount too.
I’ve not looked into if it’s possible to use in Australia (Privacy being US and all), even then I don’t know if you end up paying for multiple conversions as you pay AUD from USD then pay the balance of USD in AUD?? Would be very nice if there was something like this in Australia. I mean with our online world and the rate of fraud, wouldn’t something like this be ideal?
EDIT: Seems it is US only
EDIT #2: Apparently This mob work in Australia, although you need the premium service for disposable cards: https://www.revolut.com/en-AU (which are only single use). I don’t know that it’s worth $11 / month for my use cases, it would be cheaper just to have a second CC that has minimal credit for what I need or a second debit card/account that only carries enough balance for what I need at any point in time.