Hi everyone this one is gonna be a long post, but i really appreciate the help and suggestions if you have any 🙁
I really need some advice on how to deal with a credit card fraud situation with my SMBC Olive card. Here’s what happened:
Someone has been using my credit card since April last year without my knowledge.
- I didn’t notice it because I only had the SMBC app, not the Vpass app. I also didn’t check the app monthly since I usually get email alerts when I use my card, so I relied on those. But strangely, I never got emails about these fraudulent charges.
- The fraudulent charges were coming from a sketchy website called /myfavecar.com/, billing me for some kind of fake “membership.”
- I only realized what was going on in January, when I didn’t use my credit card at all for a month (in December) and saw a charge I didn’t recognize.
- From April 2024 until November 2024, I was still using the card for personal expenses, so I paid my credit card bills each month, assuming all the charges were mine.
- I had no idea there were fraudulent charges hidden among the real ones.
- I was outside of Japan from January until March 2025 and couldn’t report it right away.
- I don’t speak Japanese well, and it took me until April this year (when my university started) to finally get in touch with SMBC and explain the issue.
- Because I didn’t pay the January bill (which had only fraudulent charges), SMBC blocked my credit card.
To get help, I even went to my university's support center, and they helped me call SMBC directly. But even with that, there wasn’t much progress… the bank keeps telling me I have to pay the full amount, which I really don’t think is fair since I didn’t authorize these transactions.
Now:
- My card is blocked because I haven’t paid the fraudulent bill.
- I’m extremely worried this will destroy my credit history or even get me blacklisted in Japan.
- I’m frustrated that SMBC never flagged this suspicious activity and made it so hard to resolve for someone who doesn’t speak Japanese.
Has anyone gone through something similar with SMBC or other Japanese banks?
Is there any way I can dispute this more seriously or file a formal complaint?
What are my options to fix this and avoid long-term damage to my credit?
Any advice would mean a lot. Thanks in advance.
by Global_Mongoose_2229
9 comments
Not paying the bill will impact your credit rating here.
You likely won’t have any recourse against the issuing bank for any old charges. It’s your responsibility to check your statements and notify the issuer if there are fraudulent charges. Generally you would be expected to do this every month, so for the month that you did notify them, they may reimburse you.
The issuer may help you try to claim back against whoever is charging against your account. But if it’s a year old and you didn’t do anything about it, there’s no guarantee.
My recommendation is to pay your credit card bill, and take it from there.
I have an SMBC card, and the terms on that say I can have up to the last 60 days of fraudulent charges refunded. Longer back than that is tough luck.
Check what the protection window is, and then accept you’ll have to pay the historic ones. It’s your responsibility to check your bill.
Pay the entire bill straight away to protect your credit rating. The charges that can be refunded will get credited to your account so you’ll only be out of pocket for a month or so.
Lastly, get a new card with a new number issued, and check the bill every month.
What was the fraudulent amount?
Also unfortunately this isn’t generally something your uni can help with, aside from a kind soul making a call for you.
But also how were you paying your bill if not direct debit? Assuming you didn’t notify about the fraudulent January charges before they were due and simply didn’t pay that is unfortunately completely your fault and it’s understandable they have suspended the card.
I don’t think you will get blacklisted in the country but unfortunately, you got block your credit card so your credit record is already done, and if you keep fighting and causing them problems, they might even close your account. If I were you, I’d pay and dismiss everything as a mistake then talk with the bank for look the way to stop the fraudulent membership. Hint next time, you should double-check every penny what’s being charged to your credit card; I do it every week this world is plenty scammers. Good luck
File a police report, file a claim with SMBC and follow their procedure, get a new card issued, and keep paying your bills. This is part of owning a credit card, you can’t just choose not to pay the bill and hope it doesn’t affect your credit record. You need to follow the proper procedures for claims.
You have to pay the outstanding bill immediately to not risk getting blacklisted, you wouldn’t get a credit card for the next 7 years. As separate issue, you have to report the fraudulent charges, the card will likely be replaced (new number).
To prevent future fraud, make sure to set up push and email notifications and security mechanisms in the Vpass app: Set the card to auto-block mode and unblock it only for the moment you actually purchase something (electricity and internet charges will go through anyway), set the limit reminder etc.
Look at it from their perspective a little:
* You’d been paying this regular charge for 9 months without complaint
* You suddenly stopped paying your bills 3 months ago
* You took 3 months to properly contact them about not paying your bill
* You’re now refusing to pay your bill that’s already 3 months overdue until they instantly do something about something that happened a year ago and you took a year to tell them about
Does that sound like someone you’d want to support as a customer?
This is why I wrote a script that goes through my vpass and uccard credit card statements to classify them and put them in a spreadsheet.
It makes it easy to spot weird transactions, and gives me a sense of how much I’m spending on different things.
Pay your bill, and from now on, check your statements every month.
I had a serious of fraudulent charges via “Amazon” charged to my SMBC card. SMBC were very helpful, they have an English phone service for fraud. I got all my money back. Pay the bill and claim what you can for the fraud.