Any advice/help will be greatly appreciated because I genuinely don’t know what to do. For context early October I got an email from my credit card company asking me to verify a $3000 charge on my card. When I saw the email I called them and told them it wasn’t me, they canceled my card, sent me a new one, and removed the charge from my account. Last Friday (December 19th) I checked my discover app to pay my bill and saw the $3000 charge was back on my account. I called them and they told me after concluding the investigation they didn’t believe there was any fraud on the account so I would have to pay the balance. I disputed the charge again and told them that I did not authorize a $3000 charge with my card. On the phone the lady told me the $3000 charge was completed using the physical chip of my card and there were valid purchases using the card before and after the fraudulent transaction so therefore the charge was not “fraud”. Looking at the previous and post transactions I realized what had happened and explained the situation over the phone. I was leaving the mall and I was stopped outside by a woman collecting money for a funeral for her brother. I decided to donate $10 or $15 dollars (don’t remember the exact amount) and the woman let me tap to pay towards the funeral fund, she told me the card wasn’t going through and I went home and completely forgot about it until that moment and realized I had been scammed. The lady on the phone told me they would reopen the case with this new information. The charge is still on my account and the lady told me that since this was a scam I would most likely have to pay the full amount myself but they would still conduct a second investigation.
I fully understand that I’m the idiot here that got scammed, I should not have tried to donate money to a random lady for her brother’s funeral. But I can’t go back in time so what should I do now? I’m lost, I can’t afford to pay $3000 for a scam, that’s almost 2 full mortgage payments for me. I would greatly appreciate any advice, tips, people/agencies to contact, anything at all. Has anything like this happened to anyone you know and how did they handle it. I would really appreciate any help you guys can offer me, thank you in advance.
I got scammed and my credit card company wants me to pay the $3000
byu/Consistent-Village60 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Consistent-Village60
30 Comments
Unless they successfully get the money back from the scammer, this is on you and you’re going to end up paying for it. The bank can’t control your behavior and shouldn’t have to eat your loss
You need to be clear on the difference between scam and fraud, because if I didn’t get it from your post, the bank definitely didn’t get it
Didn’t it seem odd to you that an individual would be outside using a chip and pin machine to raise funds for their family members funeral ?
Hopefully the CC sides with you, however, you are most likely going to have to pay this back. Take the hit and learn from it.
Just noting that tap to pay is not chip. Did you insert your card or did you tap it? You could file a police report and describe the woman. See if the mall has security cameras for that date/locarkon
Even if you were trying to authorize a charge for $15, that’s very different than $3000. That’s fraud on the woman’s part and you should not be liable for more than $15. I’d be cautious about saying you “got scammed” though. Scams involve someone willingly paying the money; you did not.
Tell the card company you were defrauded. It’s no different than you handing your card to some other business and them billing you for more than the agreed amount.
If you authorize a $15 donation but it became $3000, it is still a wrong amount. You might have filed it under the wrong dispute category.
Do not use the word “scam”. Commonly, “scam” implies that you authorized the full $3000 charge. You did not.
In your case, it’s more similar to handing over your card to a restaurant waiter, and they secretly charged a lot more than your bill.
I think the CC company would probably say you’d have to file a civil suit against the scammer. I mean if they actually found the person, that person would just say you authorized the $3k. They’d consider it a civil matter.
If someone says it’ll be $30 and they charge $3000 that’s fraud. Doesn’t matter if it’s chip or tap.
> the woman let me tap to pay towards the funeral fund,
So you actually used your card and your chip, as the investigation indicated.
>what should I do now?
Hope for the best with the reopened case. Not much else can be done.
Good luck.
Strongly suggest filing a police report and then using that to support your claim. This is a common scam in my neighborhood (they set up outside the grocery store), so I’m sure the police know about it. If they give you pushback, tell them you need it for a fraud claim with your credit card. Then tell your credit card you have a police report associated with the fraud. And in the future don’t do stuff like this.
Because you put the card on the scanner, you’re outside of the consumer protection laws that safeguard against fraud. The fraud protection on credit cards is only for unauthorized charges, not for authorized charges that are incorrect. By putting your card on the scanner, you “authorized” the charge. The process you’ll go through now is a chargeback, not a fraud dispute. This difference is important.
What likely happened is that the person using the card scanner pulled the machine away and completed the charge for $3000. This is a straight up scam, and the chargeback should be successful.
FCBA guarantees you 60 days to file a dispute (11/20/2025), but most card issuers give 120 days. So if the incident occurred on 10/1/2025, 120 days would be 1/29/2026. So you may be okay here.
Your next step is to await their determination. Write down and document everything that has happened, starting with the dates and claims in your original fraud dispute, all the way through your current call and discovery that it wasn’t an unauthorized charge, but a fraudulent merchant charge. If the bank rules in the merchant’s favor you can contact the CFPB.
Unfortunately, you willing used your credit card, scam or not, it was you who tapped it. While it IS a scam, Discover doesn’t consider it fraud. You’re going to be SOL unless Discover can get their money back from the scammers merchant bank.
Make sure your dispute is being processed or reopened as a dispute for an unauthorized/incorrect amount and not as a stolen card or fraud. Your credit card company is correct that this not fraud. You are not disputing that you were present for the charge or that you authorized *a* purchase. You are disputing that the amount you were charged does not match the amount you authorized. You may have better luck. But as it stands right now, the credit card company is leaning on cardholder responsibility. It is your responsibility to maintain possession of your card and verify the amount (when possible) prior to using your card. You’ve as good as told them that you didn’t do that, so I wouldn’t be shocked if they stand by their original decision.
Have you contacted the police? If not, do it immediately.
There is a difference between both. Tapping is not scanning the chip. The credit card company can differentiate between both.
-So did you tap or insert your card?.
-What did the bank tell you about how the charge was made?
>. . . I was leaving the mall and I was stopped outside by a woman collecting money for a funeral for her brother. I decided to donate $10 or $15 dollars (don’t remember the exact amount) and the woman let me tap to pay towards the funeral fund, she told me the card wasn’t going through . . .
Not one to kick someone when they’re down, but you really did this???
Sounds like the funeral home was collecting money for the funeral. In haste you put in $30 but reality it was $3000 dollars. I have been scammed before as well. But have lost on these type of cases. I generally donate in cash in these type of situations and ask for a receipt.
File it and explain that you didn’t get a receipt (can vendor provide one?) and that you didn’t get the product and services you paid for.
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Don’t ever give your chip to some random on the street.
Banks and credit card companies will find any excuse to make you pay. It’s a business and they don’t want to keep losing billions to reimbursing customers who get scammed. You must file a police report to get anywhere with 99% of disputes
You authorized the transaction the scammer made. The $3000 is on you not the CC company.
I believe under the law, you’re only responsible for $50.
To anyone: If anyone approaches you for any reason outside a mall, it’s a scam.
Hell, if anyone approaches you, it’s a scam. They put a target on you for one reason or another. Easiest way to target someone is just look for someone young and naive, 18-28 years old, who hasn’t been scammed enough to learn yet.
Banks don’t typically cover these types of fraud. You can and should file a pooice report, but ultimately you are very likely going to be on the hook for the $3k.
The more years I get under my belt, I find the easier it is to say NO. In fact, NO is my default response. It gets easier the more you practice.
With respect to donating, only on your terms, never another person’s.
I agree with the others; this is definite fraud as you agreed to one amount and they charged another. Now proving it may be more difficult, especially since you led with the scam thing.
Edit to add: how did they even use tap for $3000? None of my cards can tap to that amount. I am missing something here.
Smarter folks than me already gave good advice. But just chiming in with a suggestion for op for the future (or anyone following along). All of my cards have the option to set up notifications for transactions above a certain amount. They can be push or text or both. I set mine up for $0.01 so that I am notified with any use whatsoever. I generally loathe push notifications but when it is my phone telling me that my money has been spent, I find it useful. If OP had this set up, they would have immediately seen the charge for $3000 go through and could have confronted the person right there or called the police.
You should have called the police immediately and you need to do that now. How do you expect to convince anyone that fraud occurred when you’re just ignoring the fraud?
Unfortunately this is on you. Did you receive anything in writing to support your claim you authorized $15, not $3000?
If not, from the bank’s point of view, you gave a stranger your credit card to run any amount they want and kept no receipt. Did you sign anything? You could argue if you find a fraudulent signature.
I always file a police report and give the credit card company a copy.