Anyone in Japan Hungry?
Jun 24th, 2005 by Jason
American Express
Account Security Group
1-800-824-9289(Inside United States)
1-336-393-1111(Collect Call - Outside United States)June 24, 2005
Re: 37XX-XXXXXX-24007
Dear Cardmember
In an effort to protect and serve our Cardmembers, we consistently monitor accounts for possible fraudulent activity. Occasionally, we find it necessary to contact our customers to verify certain charges.
If you do not recognize the charge(s) listed below, we request that you call the American Express Account Security Group at your earliest convenience. Please have your American Express ® Card available when calling the Account Security Group at 1-800-824-9289. If you are calling from outside of the United States, please call collect 336-393-1111 and ask to be transferred to the Account Security Group.
1) On 06/24/05 for $429 at Hankyu San Bangai
Ummm, yeah. Apparently my American Express Blue has an identical twin that (unbeknownst to me) was visiting Japan today. 
If I had to guess, I’d say that my Blue card was one of the 40M that were able to be accessed by hackers thanks to the spiffy folks at CardSystem Solutions Inc, who admitted to not properly securing their databases.
I suppose I should be pissed, but with absolutely zero hassle, AMEX erased the fraudulant charge, closed that account, and reissued a new card on a new account. (edit: it took almost a month for the card to arrive!)
As for CardSystems Solutions Inc, their days appear to be numbered now that VISA and Amex have decided to no longer do business with them. (Full Story) 
You went close to my homeland and didn’t even bother to tell me?!
No, but a copy of my card did. LOL
How old were you when you came to the US, if you don’t mind me asking?
8 months
I just got this same letter today. I called American Express and apparently someone decided to purchase $343 worth of athletic apparel or equipment at FinishLine.com with my card a couple of days ago. This was on a business account. I no longer have my business, so I just cancelled this one and put in an application for a blue card.
“1-800-824-9289″ (the AMEX account security group) has jumped to the #1 search keyphrase that leads people to this site from a search engine, so I’m guessing quite a few folks are getting these letters.
Good luck on getting the Blue card! It took them about a month to deliver my replacement card because they were out of stock of the blank cards. I guess they must be replacing quite a few.
I got one today and indeed used the 1800 number for the search to see if this may be a bogus alert and someone trying to get more info from me. My copy-card was in Italy trying to book a flight to the Netherlands.
Amex blocked my card and is issuing a new one, which supposedly is to arrive on Tuesday of next week. I will be travelling the week after, so sure hope that it will arrive on time.
Bea, hope you got your card in time! Someone tried to book a flight with it? That’s pretty ballsy. If I were AMEX, I’d let that charge go thru and see who showed up to board the plane.
After getting the “it’ll be at least a month until we can get you a new card” speech from one of their reps when I called to see where my replacement card was, I received it three days later. LOL