Seriously?? How many times in one life can a person expect to have identity theft issues? In the past two years, Hugh and I have had three incidents of identity theft. What’s the deal? Is it so difficult for people to just be honest and not steal from other people?
January 2009- I logged in to my checking account and discovered that I was missing over $1800. Now, I’m not the banker in my house and my lack of math skills has been humorous for many people, but I think I would realize when that kind of money was missing from my checking account. I had my debit card and all of my checks, so I couldn’t understand what happened. There were TONS of charges, ranging from Anna’s Linens, Target, Spec’s, etc. I raced to the bank where I had the account closed, filed a police report, and filled out tons of paperwork to get my money back. I was told at the bank that I had probably written a check somewhere and someone just took the numbers from the bottom of the check and re-created their own on the computer. I was so pissed. When identity theft happens, it doesn’t end with just going to the bank. I got collection calls from the companies that had accepted the bad checks (even after the account was closed businesses kept accepting them) where I had to repeatedly explain the situation. I had to fill out a complete form and have it notarized to send to the credit agencies to protect my credit score. It went on for months. I mean….Spec’s allowed these people to write two checks in one day over a thousand dollars. You’d think they’d ask for some photo ID or call and verify a check that was written. AGH!!! In the end they managed to get away with over $3,000 in fraudulent check writing. Oh…and I will probably never be able to write a check at any Wal-Mart for the rest of my life. Not that I ever WOULD write a check at Wal-Mart, but I’d like to have the ability to if I felt like it.
September 2010- Hugh’s sitting at work one day when he gets a phone call from Discover asking him if he’s trying to charge $3600 at the Apple Store. Hugh tells them no, and they ask him if he has his card with him. He replies “Yes, I always have my stuff with me.” And then he pulls out his wallet to see that he’s missing his Discover card and American Express card. Then the guy on the phone informs him that they just approved a charge at Best Buy for $2400. So he has to dispute that charge and cancel the card with Discover (both of ours, actually) and then hurries to call AMEX. Well, they had just approved the $3600 charge at the Apple Store, but had declined the charge at Best Buy. He then had to dispute that charge and order new cards for both of us. Hugh carries a money clip wallet, and it’s near impossible to get the cards he carries out of there. They’re packed in really tight and there’s no way that someone could grab his wallet out of his pocket, remove those two cards and then replace it without him being aware of it. They only explanation that we could come up with was that possible someone took them out of his wallet when I was holding his wallet in my purse.
November 2010- Since Hugh and I were married, I’ve become much more diligent about checking our online bank statements and verifying all charges made to our accounts. So, I was online one day and noticed that Hugh’s “play money” account is overdrawn. Now, we don’t use these accounts very often so the idea of it being overdrawn seemed odd. Well, all of the charges on the account were made in one day and at four different stores. Taqueria Arandas, Country Liquor Store #2, the Dollar Store, and Little Caesar’s. For a whopping total of $700. Hugh had the card in his pocket, and there are no checks with this account so the bank told us that Hugh had probably used his card somewhere and someone had swiped it themselves and made their own card.
These are the things that make me wonder about the world that we live in. It’s just nuts! This is our hard earned money and we deserve to keep it, not have it stolen. Here’s the conversation that Hugh and I had about what we could do to prevent future issues:
Jenn: “Should we just carry cash with us and use that for debit card purchases?”
Hugh: “There are dangers with carrying around large amounts of cash, and at least with a debit or credit card if money is stolen you can get it replaced.”
Jenn: “So….how can keep this from happening again?”
Hugh: “Move to Singapore
So, what’s the right answer? Is there anyway to be 100% safe with out money?
I'd love some opinions on this.
No comments:
Post a Comment