Barcelona planning - credit card issue
 

I will be in Spain 9/19-9/27, and last week I tried to book tickets online for a concert at the Palau de Musica Catalana. I entered my credit card information, and it said it would send me an email confirmation, which I had not yet received. There was a hold on my cc in the amount of the ticket price, so I assumed it was fine, but today I logged on and Citi told me to call them because of high risk activity. There are 3 unrecognized charges with descriptions of csfuel.com and priceryte.com totalling approx $75 (roughly concert ticket price but that is prob coincidence). I called Citi and they told me someone had tried to make a $1004 purchase! Needless to say, that card is cancelled, but I am just very upset that this happened when trying to book via a major attraction website. I also booked a tour with Catalanya Bus Turistic and received a normal purchase confirmation, but I guess my info could have been stolen there as well. Has anyone else had any experiences like this?

Your informaiton could have been stolen any time in the past several months. Was the attempted use in
Spain or elsewhere?

I suspect that a thief of average intelligence would wait a while before using stolen CC info just to confuse you about where the breach occurred. One who pickpockets the actual card will use it right away, though, to get the most out of it before you report it missing.

I've often wondered if it is possible to "trace" where the breach occurred. I had an incident with a card I used only for overseas travel except when testing the card prior to travel. But I had not traveled in over 2 months when the charge (domestic) appeared.

Prior to that, I had used the card extensively in 3 continents as well as the internet for foreign web pages. I could not even begin to speculate where the thieves obtained my number.

Sorry this happened to you. I used my CC to buy a ticket at the Palau back in Feb and had no incident.

The charges were in Spain, so I feel it had to be one of those two vendors, but who knows! I feel better after venting though. :) A new card should arrive shortly, and I hope we can buy concert tickets with cash when we get there.

Becky, did you buy it through Servicaixa ?

Maybe you could contact La Caixa customer service and explain what happened. They are a serious bank and should be interested on those things.

Rgds, Cova