ATTN: TFSource Buyers; Credit Card Info Could Be Compromised

I got a call from my bank today stating that there was some fraudulent activity on my debit card. The suspicious charges were $1.00 from APL*ITUNES and $1.13 from APL*MOBILEME. That card has been cancelled, obviously.

It was clear that these were bogus charges, since I never buy anything from iTunes, and I honestly wasn't sure what MobileMe was until I Googled it, despite the fact that I use a Mac (it's a thing to sync your iPhone, Mac, and PC apparently). It seems that these hackers have an Apple fetish or that they want to smear Apple in the process of scamming a bunch of people. Perhaps they simply figured that enough people actually use iTunes that enough of them wouldn't notice until larger charges started appearing.

Upon further research (and a link my boyfriend sent me to a forum post on a site I rarely check anymore, TFW2005, a Transformers forum) I found out that the hackers most likely got my information from my TFSource.com account, which I stupidly used my debit card on instead of PayPal. I haven't purchased anything there since May 2009, but I was dumb enough to leave my debit card number in my TFSource account. A lot of other TFW2005 members, including those who have not used their compromised credit card for any website other than TFSource, have reported the same fraudulent charges, so all signs point to TFSource being the source of the fraudulent activity.

It seems as though the people who stole the credit card numbers are using them to purchase computers and such, so it is very important to cancel your card as soon as possible if you notice anything suspicious, least you end up losing thousands of dollars. Even if you haven't ever purchased anything from TFSource, other websites might have been compromised as well, so you should check your accounts anyway just to be safe.

In the meantime, it is still safe to use TFSource if you are into Transformers, but be sure to use PayPal rather than a credit card. I'm sure it's not their fault (other than having crappy security) and they are one of the best Transformers sites I've found. I definitely would not use a credit card there, or on any other website (other than things like Amazon, half.com, and PayPal) anymore, especially since most sites allow you to pay by PayPal.

I also did a quick Google search of the fraudulent charges, and there have been similar frauds going on for months. If I had to guess, I'd say it's the same hackers getting a hold of different databases. I believe TFSource is just one of many compromised sites in this scam.