Why did Spotify make unauthorized charges to woman's credit card? There may be an answer

WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio (WCMH) -- Molly Mickle, who we told you about earlier this month, noticed mysterious charges to her credit card from Spotify.

The charges mystified the Washington Court House resident to the extent that she was issued replacement credit cards -- seven of them -- but still, the charges to the music service she never heard of or signed up for continued.

The day after Mickle's story aired, Better Call 4 got a message from a former debit card dispute specialist, who asked to remain anonymous, offering a possible explanation for Mickle's ongoing saga.

To start, Mickle's credit cards were MasterCards. That's important, the dispute specialist said, because, "MasterCard has a convenience feature called Automatic Billing Updater." It's a service that "participating merchants can use to help ensure minimal disruption to recurring transactions or for instances where the merchant may store card information in the event a customer has a reissued or updated card number due to replacement."

In other words, if Mickle's initial credit card number was compromised and used for Spotify, she would continue to be charged, even after her credit card number changed.

The dispute specialist said they previously spoke with a lot of frustrated customers like Mickle "who had unauthorized charges applied to their accounts as soon as they activated their new cards."

They also spoke with the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about the issue, and recommended that any other customers experiencing a similar problem file complaints with those agencies as well.