For a while now, the strip of my debit card has been faltering. It's an older card, due to expire within the next 6 months, and it is my primary (only?) form of payment (I rarely have cash). I know that it was wearing down because occasionally, if a teenaged workerbee didn't swipe it just right, the card couldn't be read, and the workerbee would tell me that the card was "declined." No, it wasn't declined, you just didn't do it right.
On Saturday, I went through the local Wendy's drive-thru, and had my card "declined" by a 16 year old nitwit. [She also royally screwed up my order. I asked for a #1 with extra pickles and cheese, and a diet coke. When I looked in my bag, there were no fries, so I parked my car, walked in, got my fries, and went home. There, I discovered that the diet coke wasn't diet, it was regular, and that I had a hamburger with only pickles and cheese. Moron). Thankfully, I had some cash on me, and paid for my order.
That night I met a friend for dinner before heading down to Playhouse Square to see Charade on the big screen, only to have my card, yet again, declined at the restaurant. I got on my phone (reason #9032483 why I love my iPhone) and checked my account balance, and was befuddled because there was more than enough money in my account. Again, I had cash left over from my trip out west, and paid the bill with cash.
Trying to get to the bottom of this, I called the 800 number on the back of the card, but it was too late in the day to reach a human being. I passed one of my banks ATMs on the way to the theatre, so I thought it would be so smart of me to take some cash out, since clearly, my card was malfunctioning.
Instead of the cash I wanted, the machine spit out a receipt telling me that my card was deactivated.
So I called my bank this morning, and after some hemming and hawing, my little friend in another country told me that there had been, what they suspected were, fraudulent charges on my card. The gal read back the last 10 charges, and sure enough, there was an $85 charge at a Shell station and a $1 charge somewhere in New Jersey. It was clear, I was a victim of Identity Theft.
But there are parts of this I can't wrap my head around:
1. I compulsively check my accounts online. Like up to 5 times a day. And neither of these charges were on my account. So how was I supposed to know??
2. I spent the better part of 3 weeks out of my normal purchasing radius. In fact, one of them was 2 time zones away. Why were none of those purchases flagged?
3. Why wasn't I notified of this?? Here I am, looking like an asshat because my card is repeatedly declined in various places, and I was none the wiser. Here I am, trying to explain that it's just a bum card, and the workerbees are probably thinking "yeah, lady, we've heard it before" and assume I have insufficient funds. AND IT WASN'T MY FAULT! And this coming from someone who has had insufficient funds. I assure you this was not the case. [This reminds me of a scene from Best in Show where Jerry and Cookie Fleck are trying to check into the hotel in Philadelphia, only to have their "good card" declined. The hotel manager feels bad for them, and so offers them a place to stay ... in the janitor's closet. Rent it. It's great.]
So a shiny new debit card is on its way (in 5-7 business days) and my life will resume as usual. In the mean time, I can only write checks or pay cash, which is a pain. And I should be expecting lots and lots of paperwork in my mailbox; affidavits, legal work, police reports and the like.
I'm not sure how the thief got my card number. I haven't made any online purchases recently, and I haven't checked my accounts on public computers. Are these myths, anyway???
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