Back in 2006, a pair of New York Stock Exchange specialists who worked for Van der Moolen Specialists USA LLC were convicted of securities fraud in a case where they were accused of stealing $1 million apiece by skimming pennies from stocks they oversaw. The same thing may be happening with credit cards.

There was a story in Sunday's Boston Globe about Internet complaint boards filling with comments about mysterious charges of 25 cents or so appearing on their credit card statements. It appears that either hackers are testing credit cards to ensure they are still active, or that someone is running a skimming operation.

The Better Business Bureau in Louisville believes it is likely the latter since no one has complained yet about getting hit with large fraudulent charges. The number of possible victims could be in the millions if it is a skimming operation, the BBB speculates.

The story says that if you see such a charge "to file a dispute with your credit card company, and lodge complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov) and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov) which is run by the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance."