[PHL]

hi all. first time poster, long time bettor (at least i think long, bout 12 years. small guy.) one of my most used books up until a few years ago was Sportsbook.com. i eventually left for a handful of reasons. slowly graded wagers, lack of international sports, slow payouts, etc. i didn't know how poor things were going over there until i started checking out this forum around a year ago. but, let me try to explain the quick version of my situation..

at one point i had made a 2nd account with them under my mom's name to use her CC. nothing shady. i simply didn't own any and was tapped out for a week, but wanted to bet. she didn't mind.. and since you had to use the same name for card/account.. i created it. i made sure not to accept any bonus offers or anything like that. i think i used it once and that was it.

so i basically forgot it even existed until the other month. my mom had received a sports calendar in the mail. i didn't know why.. but then remembered the account. so, i go to close it (i had already closed mine last year.) they say "ok" and ask the friendly "any reason why?" i say no real reason. they take care of it.

fast forward to today. my mom gets a courtesy fraud call for her card. a pending $45 charge. i look it up for her.. and it's a charge for a web hosting company. she calls up to find out what's going on.. and it turns out there is another charge from last week for i think like monster.com, $150 or something. now, that charge happened just 2 days after i closed that sportsbook account. my mom only uses her card at a couple stores. the same 2 for years.

so, my question is; is it possible these 2 charges could be sportsbook trying to rip her off? i'm sure i'm just being ultra paranoid and the chances are extremely slim.. but i have trouble shaking that coincidence. she only swipes her card at 2 stores. never out of her sight. never uses it online. and 2 days after the account closure, a random charge pops up? the obvious problem though.. these charges clearly aren't typical book processing marks. they're charges from legit companies (although if accurate, who/what/why/would card fraud on f'in monster.com?)

any opinions that could help would be appreciated. this currently has me stumped for the moment. i'm assuming some punk scum just rifled through receipts or the store system to jack it.. but like i was saying, can't shake that coincidence.

[KEdge2k]

I think you are probably being paranoid, but with that family of books, who knows man. It is easy to get your identity information stolen so you can't say for sure it was them necessarily.

[mtneer1212]

Nah -- just reject the charge, and move on. Monster.com certainly isn't in on it.