Upon hearing about Minecraft, I visited their website to find out more. What I read about the game looked interesting, but I decided against purchasing it. During my visit to their site, I did not fill out any forms. I did not provide any information about myself - not even so much as my first name.
I disabled the form autofill options when I first installed my browser and I always click "Never remember password" when it's offered. My browser is set up to never remember history. I know that my computer remembers, but my point is that there is no way I accidentally gave them my information that night. My debit card remained in my wallet, in my back pocket, during my entire visit to the website.
Four days later, I discovered a charge for $26 (and some change) on my bank statement, along with a credit of the same amount. The charge was listed as Minecraft and the credit was from Moneybooks. Since the money was refunded, there is "technically" no harm done, but the implications of my account being charged when I never even gave them my name, let alone my card number, are VERY frightening. I called and complained, but of course I was told that a third party must have gotten access to my card.
While this is technically possible, it is extremely unlikely that a third party had, at some previous point, gained access to my debit card number and then attempted to buy, of all the things in the world, the very same game I was contemplating buying with it on the exact day that I happened to be visiting that site. The even bigger question, though, is why Minecraft would have refunded that money to me before I ever even noticed it was missing. How would they possibly have known that the number was stolen?
This whole thing has me very troubled. I've cancelled my card (which means I have no debit or ATM card for two weeks while I wait for the new one) and I plan to spend this evening running scans of my hard drive. However they did it, Moneybookers/Minecraft gained access to my card number without my knowledge or approval.
What bothers me even more is discovering, via google, how common this appears to be. Moneybooks/Minecraft appears to be "borrowing" money from random people, and in some cases just taking it, even when some of them claim never to have even heard of the game.
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