Weird. Something like this was previously just something that happened to others. But today I had an email in my inbox from Amazon saying my credit card had been registered to someone else's account (and the email seemed authentic based on the data and similar details), and the account and orders were canceled due to abuse. It must have been flagged during data comparisons. So I had my credit card blocked right away and tomorrow I get to go through things with the fraud prevention department of my credit card company to see if anything was already purchased with it.
It's a weird feeling, after all these years of problem-free card use, especially on the internet, to finally experience firsthand what all that entails.
Fortunately, I have almost nothing fixed or recurring charged to the credit card, so it's not such a hassle if I get a new number. But if I imagine I still had all those foreign magazine subscriptions, that would be quite annoying.
The whole thing also produces a strange feeling because I only have an email as a point of reference, but no concrete data. Theoretically the email could be fake and this whole mess for nothing (okay, unlikely, because at least the email sender knows parts of my credit card number). It's just a weird feeling about the whole thing...