Identity Theft Update....GRRRRrrrrrrr

Last week I posted about some Identity Theft that Hugh and I've experienced in the past 18 months. I have an update! 

I took today off work to take care of my latest speeding ticket issue and I happened to get out in time to meet Hugh at his office so we could go to lunch. While I was waiting for him to finish up with some work, I had this sudden prickling thought that I should check my own “play money” account. I logged in and discovered that someone had literally just moments before made a $587 purchase at ToysR’Us in Humble. I checked, and I had my card as well (just like Hugh in last week’s event) and the purchase was made with a debit card. We called the bank, cancelled the debit cards and went to lunch. 

After lunch, I dropped Hugh back off at his work and headed out to run some errands. Hugh calls me and says that he just got a call from the fraud division at the bank that he works at to alert him of some suspicious charges on his account and that it was now overdrawn. This is an account that he’s required to have with work, because it’s how the bank reimburses him for expenses. It’s not even used for anything but transferring money out of it. 

Hugh and I came to the realization that the credit card theft from November must be connected with all of our checking accounts being fraudulently used. We’re ASSUMING that on one occasion when Hugh’s wallet happened to be in my purse that someone got into my wallet and his and copied everything we have. We have no other explanations or ideas. We decided to go ahead and have all of our debit cards cancelled with our bank (even the accounts that haven’t been stolen from) and we ordered new credit cards from the companies that we use. We just can’t understand how someone could get ALL of our monetary information. If it was just the credit cards, or just one bank account, or even just one bank then we could probably pinpoint an issue. All I know is that even though we’ll get all of our money back, it’s still STEALING. It pisses me off to no end and I’m frustrated. We work hard for our money, and we don’t deserve to have to spend our time having to deal with this crap. 

The worst thing about all of this is that the police can never catch these people. They get to make stealing other people’s money a profession and it sucks. Get a job, collect unemployment, jump of a bridge….I DON’T CARE, but leave us the hell alone.

Oh, and for the cherry-on-top of all of this; Hugh’s getting on average 3 phone calls a day from various companies claiming that he’s filled out survey’s saying that he’s interested in new phone service, checking accounts, and free gifts for his “baby on the way”.  No, Mom…there’s no actual baby on the way.

I'll post again when I'm not so pissed off at the world.