just check my credit card statement and had a charge from astor berning. Trying to get it cleared up now.

I too got the charge on my bank card, I plan to disput it as soon as possible after reading this site.

The company is still at it - I received a charge today for $9.55 posted 4/1/05. Called HSBC - it's a MasterMoney card too.

I had one on my bank account as well. I have a lawyer who is looking into the company or individual responsible. I need the name of the bank in Wilmington, DE where the money is going to, so my lawyer can identify the company. Does anyone know the name of the bank?

hey,
i have the same problem. my gut told me to look at my debit statement as soon as i got home after buying gas with my card at the pump.

when i went to check my statement online, i see two transactions were pending transactions. wtf? I only made one purchase and that was for gas and nothing else. i had to wait for two days to see what the transactions were actually for and f*cking ASTOR BERNING WILMINGTON DE was f*cking one of them! Who the f*ck do they think they are?

Any of you remember what you purchased when ASTOR BERNING charged you? It should have the same clearing/purchase date or someother date close to one of your purchases.

I'm thinking that it may be the gas stations fault. Let me know.

Thanks

Mine was an online purchase through ebay and paypal. After that, the very next time I checked my statement ASTOR BERNING was there. I didn't know anything about AB, so I searched on the web and found this site. I immediately went to the bank and they launched an investigation. The bank gave me my money back, but the investigation must have triggered something because Astor Berning returned my money too. It could be because I called their number and left a message that I was going to see my lawyer.

Another victim of this $9.55 scam. Working with Capital One Fraud area.

The key to getting your money back is working with your bank or credit card company. It's not a lot of money, however consider how much they are getting when they get $9.55 from thousands of people.

I too have the same 9.55 charge on my debit card (visa) I filled out the form at the bank and they said the 4 would be back in my account in about 5 days. I am getting a new card but a better way to approach this would be to figure out what transactions we all had that were similar. I read (Im not sure at which site) that someone had a eBay/Paypal transaction not long before this happened. I did also. I have cancelled my card and will be getting another, but if I use it on paypal again is it just going to happen again? I would be curious to know if anyone else had a paypal transaction in the last 2 weeks or so before this charge appeared?

I did and I also had to get a new card. I cancelled my pay pal account also. I'm retired and can't afford to lose much money.

They are definitley at it again. Was hit over the weekend and did a search on this company to discover this website. Let my credit union know too. Money will be refunded, new card issued, etc. It seems to me that the CC companies should be able to cancel this merchant account due to fraud activity.

I didn't have any ebay/paypal activity...however I did have a pogo annual fee charged and made an online payment on my credit card on the same day. Not sure if they are related but someone is sleeping on the job!

Just got my MC bill and there it was. While talking to MBNA I Googled astor berning and got this forum. Looks like a lot of us are in for a ride. Will cancel my card and get another. Have a lot of automatic payments going to it, so have to hassle with that, but hey, could be worse. Good luck to us all.

After reviewing my latest Direct Merchant's Bank MasterCard statement, I found a $9.55 Astor Berning charge. I immediately contacted the CC fraud department and they immediately credited my account to remove the charge.

One would think that it would be quite easy to stop these Astor Berning charges since there are boards like this all over the internet.

Regards,
Marc

I have a lawyer in Charleston, WV that said if he had enough of us with information about these charges he could file a class action suit against Astor Berning. His name is Tony Majestro at 304-346-2889.

I, too, had this happen. Discovered the transaction on my statement today (Sunday) so I haven't done much as yet except to transfer funds from that debit account to another account. If it's a one time hit (on accounts to stay under the radar) I don't know what good that will do.
Bank of America is my bank. Had used paypal and purchased online at Amazon.com. Also got gas. Use a debit card, not a credit card.