An increasing number of credit and debit card fraud cases among members of the Tech community has raised concern throughout the student body.
“I was actually on my bus back from Notre Dame, and I got a call from my credit card company saying they found fraudulent activity. They shut down my account, [and] then told me to call them back immediately” said Stephen Schwahn, a fourth-year CS. “But this wasn’t the first time I had heard about it; the band organizations’ GroupMe had been going off since last Thursday, [with people] saying ‘hey, watch your card statement, because I got stuff stolen’.”
According to Schwahn, one student had $700 of hats charged to his account within the span of 30 seconds. Schwahn himself had an airline ticket to Denver fraudulently charged to his account.
According to GTPD, there have been three reported cases of credit and debit card fraud in the month of September up to this point in time. Schwahn added that he was advised to file a report with the GTPD.
According to Schwahn, the fraudulent transactions have ranged from $15 items to $700 of merchandise. Originally, Schwahn had thought that the fraud was related to transactions made in the student center, but this possibility was dispelled when many of the victims advised that they had not bought anything from the student center.
Schwahn noted that incidence rates of fraud seemed to be higher within the organizations Tau Beta Sigma and Kappa Kappa Psi, which are both greek organizations affiliated with the Tech band in some facet.