Bad day? (something in the air?)

kathryn

Cathlete
Seems like several of us are having a bad day, like way worse than a typical "off" day.

Is there some weird planetary allignment or something going on?

I had a bad day, too (not as bad as some, thankfully).

I had my debit card info compromised, and had to spend time at the bank, then at two police stations (both town and campus). No money was taken out of my account, because the first two charges (two separate $1 charges to Napster) were flagged by Napster as fraud, and my bank called me and froze my debit card before any of the charges actually went through. That's the good news.

One of the charges was $180 something from Kohls, which I thought would lead to a name and address (hence my reason for going to the town police station). Unfortunately, it wasn't an order to be delivered, but an attempt by someone to buy a gift certificate and send it to an email account (for a very odd amount : $189.93 or something like that). No info was retained by Kohls because the order wasn't accepted. But when the police called Kohls to follow up, the woman who spoke to him said that whoever placed the order had "a lot" of my information (name, address, credit card number, email...and the officer suggested maybe my social security number as well! But this is all second-hand and a bit of guessing on his part. It freaks me out, though. I just checked my credit reports to see if anything odd is going on.)

I went to the campus police station at the suggestion of the town officer, and when I walked in, the detective I was sent to see (who didn't know I was coming) asked me if I was in the French department, and said he was about to get ahold of me.

Panic!

I imagined some awful identity theft in progress! But it was (by a very strange coincidence) because he wanted to ask me about one of my students (who hasn't been in class for about 4 weeks). (What are the odds that I go to see the detective on the very same --and only--day that he wants to talk to me about something completely different? It was a very Twilight ZOne moment.)

When I told him I wanted to file a report and that I had hoped that the Kohls info would have led to a name and address so there was someone to arrest, he told me about how some students on campus have things stolen, and then don't want to file reports because they "don't want to get anyone in trouble." And often they have things stolen multiple times!! I told him that if I knew who'd stolen my info, I'd 'bust a cap in his @$$" Ever see a police officer burst out laughing? He said he'd never heard a professor speak quite that way before, and that many are very serious. I told him those of us in the FL department aren't as serious as some others, but I hoped he wasn't recording our conversation. He then pretended he was whispering to someone else and asked them "did you get that?"

Now I'm without a debit card until a new one arrives (which might just reduce my spending, so that's a good thing). And I'm p!$$@@ off as heck that people get their jollies stealing from others (and really unnerved that someone got my info..how, I do not know!)
 
Kathryn:

I don't blame you for being pissed! It is such an invasion of privacy as well as a huge inconvenience. WTH is wrong with people:mad:

I had my credit card number stolen and the only reason I found out so quickly was the CC company emailed about a return made to my card. I pulled up my account and found charges to some doggie spa in Utah (I live in MN) and a bunch of charges to Amazon for gift cards. I immediately called my CC company and they handled everything. I also called Amazon and they cancelled all the gift cards & credited my account. I'm not sure how they got my number b/c I still had my card. I suppose anytime it leaves my hands (like when waiter takes it in a restaurant) it could be copied down.

Did you contact one of the credit reporting agencies (ie. Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) to place a fraud alert on your credit file? If not, you might want to in the event someone has your SS number.

Good luck!

JJ
 
so sorry Kathryn! DH had his debit card stolen too and they managed to get the max withdrawl one day... bank opened a complaint and did an invenstigation, but never heard if they actually caught anyone... put the money back though...

Hope the rest of your information was not compromised! I know how much trouble it was to get a copy of my SS card, so I can't imagine what it would be like to actually have to change all your information because someone got ahold of it!

and I actually laughed out loud about your "pop a cap in their a$$" comment... my DH says that all the time! I wouldn't blame you!
 
I didn't leave the house until late, and only to get my allergy shots. But I think you're right: Today was a very bad day. I really can't believe how much bad stuff is happening to people I love.
 
Hey, Kathryn! Same thing happened to me 2 weeks ago.

DH went to McDonald's drive-thru on a Friday morning and noticed that the cashier was texting while looking at his debit card. He warned me to watch our bank account, and sure enough... that weekend, between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, this a$$hole had made $6,500 in purchases (27 separate transactions) FROM MY CHECKING ACCOUNT!! All to .com sites like coach.com, walmart.com, aeropostale.com, tmobile.com, etc.

Even better? This was the first of the month, when ALL my bills are due, which is why there was so much money in my checking account to begin with.

Even better than that? My bank didn't even flag any of the transactions. Go figure.

I did get all the money back, but it took about two weeks, and everything from my car payment to my mortgage to my electric bill was late. Needless to say, we're much more intent on using cash now.

It's scary, and it makes you angry and upset and feel violated and unprotected. Even worse, the police officer that took our police report said that really the only thing they could charge her with would be "theft over $500". I was like WHAT?!?! There is a huge difference between $6,500 and $500!!!

Anyway, I still have to follow up to see if they caught her... do you know the cops have no obligation to keep you in the loop on the case? I think that's BS.

My original point was this... I'm really sorry you're having to go through that. I COMPLETELY understand your anger and frustration and sense of being violated. Sue! Press charges! Stone them!

(I'm still harboring some anger about this...)

I hope your week (and everyone else's) improves!

MC
 
Wow Kathryn and MC, that completely sucks! I hope you're both able to get everything straightened out and whoever is responsible gets caught.
I had my CC # stolen a few months ago but the CC company caught it right away, notified us and we weren't responsible for any of the charges. The company said it was probably taken from a gas station card swiper???

After your stories, I'm getting very paranoid now about using plastic anywhere. :confused:
 
I'd put a lock down on your credit report with the three agencies. I do recall reading somewhere someone did just that but the fraud was for business related expenses which have to be locked down somewhere else....rare but might be worth asking at the bank. I suppose the good news is that with the current economy in the crapper credit may be hard to come by...even for fraudsters.
 
Kathryn, so sorry to hear you had to go through this. This is one respect where credit cards make things a bit easier since they are not connected to your actual bank account. Definitely file a fraud alert with the three credit agencies.
 
I didn't realize it was so common. This exact same thing happened to me last December (right in the middle of Christmas internet purchases). Walmart called me to verify the $350 gift card I had "purchased". I told them I hadn't (which they obviously suspected, and that's why they'd called). So the charge never went through, which is good. But I still had to go through all the hassles everyone's mentioned here about waiting for a replacement (just before Christmas!!!), redoing all my automatic billing to that credit card, etc. And worse...when I tried to get information to figure out how this had happened, the original Walmart person was "not allowed" to give me any information about the purchase order, which did include another phone number that was not mine, as well as another ("gift") address. They said I had to file a police report -so I did, which took about 2 days of calling through the automated system for non-emergencies. About THREE weeks later an officer came to my house to take the report, and says, "Well after all this time, there's probably not much we can do". I asked for the information that Walmart had (I was mostly trying to figure out if someone local SAW my credit card, or if it was taken from an internet purchase I had made). He said he could not give me any info...TO PROTECT that person!!!! (They wouldn't even give me the area code). So, not only do they NOT have an obligation to give you the follow-up (as a previous poster said)...but if you take the initiative to try to follow-up, they won't tell you anyway. I still have no idea if they caught the person (or if they even tried to investigate it), or what measures I can take to prevent a similar occurence. Very frustrating.
 
Oh, what a mess!! I hope it all gets straightened out and they find out how did it. Although I think it's hilarious that you said if you knew who it was, you'd 'bust a cap in his @$$.' I'd feel the same way. :eek:
 
Did you contact one of the credit reporting agencies (ie. Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) to place a fraud alert on your credit file?
Thanks for the tip.
I did get my credit report from each of them to check, but didn't think about placing a fraud alert on them. Do you know how I contact them to do that? And what does it entail?
 
Thanks for the tip.
I did get my credit report from each of them to check, but didn't think about placing a fraud alert on them. Do you know how I contact them to do that? And what does it entail?

You just need to contact one of the big three reporting agencies to do it and then they're required to contact the other two. Here's some info from the FTC:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/consumers/defend.html

This is a bummer, Kathryn. I hope it gets sorted out for you ASAP.
 
thats so frustrating!!

My mom had her purse snatched about twenty years ago and the woman used her cards/id all over town and nobody looked at her id!!! My mother is 5'5" and well over 250 pounds! The theif was only 100 pounds!!

Yikes! I don't know if I want to use credit cards anymore. Makes you want to use cash, doesn't it.
 
The same thing happened to me except it was my credot card. They purchased $1500 worth of gift cards from Home Depot, who thankfully caught it and thought it odd so they called me to confirm. I also reported it to the police, which is easy because b/f is in charge of investigations. They were able to track a couple of guys down who went to pick up the gift cards (shipped to a hotel in Chicago) but I don't think they know who actually placed the order or how they got my info. They had my name, home address, credit info AND cell phone. That was the weird part.
 
My mom had her purse snatched about twenty years ago and the woman used her cards/id all over town and nobody looked at her id!!! quote]


That is frustrating! As a security measure, I do not sign the back of my credit cards. Instead, I write "see photo ID" in hope of getting businesses to look and verify who is using the card. Sad thing is, many do not look at the back of the card or ask to see my ID:confused:

JJ
 
How frustrating! I hope it all gets sorted out soon for you!

I too had to LOL at the 'bust a cap' comment
 

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