It is being made through my debit card. The first time this occurred, I contacted my bank, confirmed that once the charge goes through they need to reverse it. I do not use Planet VPN or any VPN. I don’t have a computer. The charge was made through my debit card and I only use my credit cards. I canceled that debit card and got issued a new one. During that month, I didn’t have mobile banking. They also stated they would make a cease letter or contact the seller so they can no longer charge me.
Sure enough, this month, I have the same charge for $9.99 on my NEW debit card, a brand new number! My checking only has $18.00 and I’m not going to risk ever overdrafting because of this. I don’t ever use my debit cards, I use credit cards and pay them off. Even when I google Planet VPN, it appears there are many? I don’t even know which one has charged me or how because I don’t have any accounts…. I’ll be contacting to get this taken off tomorrow when it applies but what can I do? Thanks in advance.
Edit: this is what it says exactly, Pre-authorization Debit At Planet Vpn, +380687985404
You could also tell your bank you don’t want to be able to overdraft and for them to just reject charges you can’t cover. Most banks do that I’ve heard.
You’re sure it’s a debit charge and not a draft using an account and routing number? If it’s an account and routing number, you can get your bank to change those pretty easily.
I googled the number you wrote. Only 3 results and the first one is this website called Planet selling VPN routers. The numbers don’t actually show up in the link but if I expand on the result Google says “This result seems relevant even though this search term may not appear: 380687985404”. So it may not be the website?.. But that’s interesting. The other two links that came up are just your post here and a shady website that lists “phone numbers”.
Sounds like they’re using your bank account number. Your bank’s mobile app might not be secure, or they got the information using a dummy website you logged into. The other possibility is that your bank is involved, but that’s very unlikely. And, if you use the same username and password (or even just one of those) for multiple sites, your account might have been hacked that way. You might have a friend or relative who has access to your debit card who could have used it for a VPN subscription too.
Your best route here is to close the bank account and open a new one and use different login information when creating the online access. If you have any other accounts with that bank besides the checking account, those accounts might also be compromised.
Remember, do not click links to your bank from emails, and only login on their website if you’re certain you typed the URL correctly.
That number is most likely their telephone number. +380 is the country code for Ukraine. Do you use WhatsApp? You can try to WhatsApp them and see if you get anywhere with it.
I got a random purchase on my card for planetVPN recently as well. I closed that card and will have a new one soon (which will hopefully curb this theft, but not so hopeful going off of what you described in this post). I hope we will be able to discover the cause of these charges.
That’s an option too, thanks for reminding me! That seems the safest as I am doing nothing on my end to purchase this VPN yet it somehow has access to my account.
Oh, I’ll ask about that, but I will most likely just change banks. I recently had an overdraft fee and didn’t know that was a thing. Thanks for sharing with me!
The phone number (assuming it is a phone number) seems to be a Ukrainian number based on the country code (+38 doesn’t exist and +380 is Ukraine).
There is a Planet VPN company in Romania with a Ukrainian guy on LinkedIn listing himself as an affiliate manager for them for the last 5 months. So maybe a possible link, but IMO quite flimsy, although they happen to charge exactly $9.99/month for their paid service. No one in their Google reviews complains of fraudulent charges though (the only complaints are regarding the quality of service that apparently doesn’t please everyone), but it could be a customer using stolen payment details and not necessarily the company’s fault.
probably because
- it’s shitty to assume everyone knows all the same things you do
- people who are learning disabled exist
- children and young, inexperienced adults exist
