Last week I went over to a friend’s house. For purposes of this writing, I will call her Daffodil. As we sat around the kitchen table, Daffodil mentioned she found a strange charge on her Visa statement — billed to a company she never heard of and on a day she didn’t use her card.

She is diligent about looking over her statement every month, but generally operates by her "double digit rule." She explained, "If it is under 10 bucks, I don’t give it a lot of focus." A lot of people I talk to seem to operate by roughly the same rule. Is a small charge really worth the time it takes to investigate it? The charge was for $9.87 to PICTUREGLOBUS.com. She filed a complaint with Visa and it is pending further investigation. I decided to beat Visa to it and conduct my own investigation. What I learned is that PICTUREGLOBUS.com is not a legit business at all, but the very edge of a larger criminal operation - siphoning millions from unsuspecting card holders by charging small amounts across a lot of people and laundering the funds overseas. PICTUREGLOBUS.com is just one of many fake websites. The Face of Credit Card Fraud – And What You Can Do - CA Security Advisor Research Blog - CA

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