Don't ignore those small charges

KUSA - The charges are small. They range from 9 to 25 cents on your credit card or debit card. It would be easy to look at them and ignore them.

But experts say you should not ignore it.

It's especially important to look for those small charges in January because they can get lost in a bill with all the holiday purchases.

The charges come from nonexistent companies who have figured out a way to steal your charge card number and charge very small amounts to it.

Heather Schmidt noticed those charges on her bill last month.

"I saw a charge from Adele Services for 22 cents for something that I did not charge. So I Googled it and I found that it was a fraudulent charge, so I called my bank and cancelled my card," said Schmidt.

Mathew Lamb of TCF Bank, where Schmidt has her account, says the bank acts as soon as a customer notifies them of a transaction that is not valid.

"We will deactivate the card and issue a new one," he said.

That is what the bank did in Schmidt's case.

Because she was curious, Schmidt also called the number listed on her bank card for the Adele Services 22 cent charge. The number was out-of-service.

There is another company that is charging the same small amounts. It appeared as GFDL in the amount of 11 cents on the bank card of a couple from Montrose.

They, too, called the number listed for GFDL and found it was out-of-service. They also Googled "GFDL charges" and found several hundred complaints from consumers who had been charged between 9 and 25 cents. All charges were unauthorized.

Lamb says it's not something new, just something that has resurfaced.

"They'll run a small 20 cent transaction just to see if the card work and if the card works, they'll know the card is still good and then they go and perpetrate the fraud," said Lamb.

The card can be charged thousands of dollars if the small transaction goes through says Lamb.

Several years ago, Lamb says more than a million of these types of charges were sent out internationally.

If 2 million 20 cent charges are sent out, and half are paid, that's $200,000.

Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey says fraudulent financial transactions like these are very difficult to prosecute.

"Sometimes the people are out of the country. They are difficult to track and they are very seldom caught because they can remain anonymous," Storey said.

Storey says Schmidt's case is a good example of why you should scrutinize your monthly financial statements to avoid a lot of future problems.