Saturday, June 4, 2011

Party Foul!

I was woken first thing this morning by a call from the fraud department of my bank. Well, more accurately, their third party firm who handles fraud. I guess someone stole my debit card number (I have the actual card in my possession.) The thief has been on a fine dining adventure across NYC. 
On the one hand, I am so very, very thankful for the bank's diligence in bringing this to my attention and cancelling my card before it could get worse.
On the other hand, I am now in a state of panic. Mr. Case just barely started back to work this week so we haven't seen a check in 5 weeks. We had literally just enough money to pay my COBRA and for my prescription blood thinners. Now, not so much. Thankfully I have enough injections to get me through to Monday when I can call the bank. My prescription is at Sam's Club and I always pay cash because I don't have a MasterCard, which is the only credit card they accept. I'm really praying that recuperating our funds is a quick process.  
I'm quite perplexed as to how they got the card number. I never, EVER use my debit card to make purchases online and I ALWAYS use it as a credit card, not debit card, when I get gas. Those are supposedly the two ways they can steal a number easiest. Otherwise, I've been broke and haven't been anywhere to make purchases, LOL. I guess it is a moot point, anyway, since they have the number and were using it. Let me just reiterate how thankful I am my bank was proactive. My parents want me to switch banks now but I refuse-one time my husband's card was stolen and they were excellent in resolving our issues so I am entirely loyal to them!!

3 comments:

addy said...

I just saw this!

Did everything work out ok?

Sean had this happen to him - he used his card as a credit card at a gas station, and the people had some kind of thing on the credit card machine there that copied his number. Then they made a duplicate card with their own pin number, and withdrew a ton of cash from an ATM in San Fran. Fortunately, he was working a 72 that weekend so it was incredibly easy to prove it had been fraud.

Now he never uses his card as a debit card, just because the credit purchases are so much safer.

Open and Shut Case said...

Unfortunately, my bank has not made it easy for me. The long and short of it is, it is a private business bank in Newport Beach-very hoity toity. I only banked there because my credit union put a hold on all my paychecks because they were so obscure. Now that I no longer work for my previous employer, the level of service has gone down considerably. Now on top of that stress I have to find a new bank. Oh well. Good riddance, right?

Laura Joy said...

So so so sorry about this! I know just what you are going through... we had the exact same this happen last month. Unfortunately, they blew through $5000 in just 12 hours... crazy. We never have that much money in our account, but had more than usual because of our move. It really messed up funding for deposits on our house and all that. Not cool! I hope that they are able to remedy everything quickly for you, and not add to the stress.