For some damn reason my bank debit card quit working last Friday, which was quite the surprise.
I tried to get a couple of goodies on my way to work and the clerk told me the transaction had been denied.
Hmm.
I know there was money in the account.
So I went over to the ATM.
I have had problems with the magnetic strip on cards many times but the sonofabitch never met an ATM it didn't like.
No dice there either.
Fuck.
I had a little cash on me and just paid for it and went to work.
Saturday, I had to get some cash for gas to go to my Dads wake and the damn thing didn't work again.
Luckily The Wife was with me and hers worked just fine, on my account.
Weird.
Last night I tried to order a book off of Amazon cheap.
I get an Email that it was denied too.
It ain't expired, I checked that first.
So as soon as I am done here I am off to the fucking bank to see why this is happening.
It wouldn't surprise me to find out someone, somewhere, has decided I need a quick reminder of who is in control but that's probably just my well deserved paranoia kicking in.
We shall see here shortly.
UPDATE;
Well now, that was...... enlightening.
Apparently VISA has someone who watches your transactions. A whole fucking department of them.
They saw something that was "out of the ordinary" on my account and denied the transaction, then went ahead and froze the card.
It turns out they were right but it still gives me the creeps to know just how intrusive Big Brother is.
Some dickhead tried to use my account at a Target in Richmond VA.
Seeings how I don't live in Virginia and that it would have to be some end of the world calamity for me to even step foot in a Target store, it was a good thing.
Except now I have to go through the hassle of inputting the new card number every time I go to order something on line.
Pain, in the ass!
I guess I can loosen up the tin foil hat but I don't think I'm gonna take it off, just yet.
5 comments:
That the credit card companies can and do look out for fraud is a great plus of using credit cards, at least in my estimation. Usually though, they contact you without delay to let you know something is amiss. I had American Express both call me and email me, then send me a letter, about a few bad transactions in the course of a day or two a couple or few years back. Seems that someone ordered two small and relatively inexpensive computer accessories using my Amex card, then they tried a third order and asked Dell to ship it to an address not associated with my card or in other words to an address that was not mine. That third order was for a complete system and Dell was more than happy to honor that order even though I had an account with them and they knew it was not my address. Amex denied the transaction and also the second transaction and also contacted me without delay. They were unable to cancel the first as I think Dell had already sent it out to me, as I recall it was a keyboard. Those humps at Dell insisted I pay for shipping to return it to them even though they said they understood it had been a fraudulent order. After a few weeks, they sent me a shipping label to return it at their expense. My next two computers were HPs. Amex caught the second and third bad transactions, albeit they only got the second one because it was made on the same day as was the third one (the one that was going to the bad address). They told me that sometimes the bad guys even ship to your regular address and they wait for the UPS or FedEx truck and claim it outside your house. Would not work with my regular UPS guy but who knows if anyone else delivered it.
I got a call from someone claiming to work for my bank about my credit card one night, I thought it was a scam at first but they were just letting me know me that they had detected an unusual payment which they stopped.
When I speculated about where the miscreants had obtained my data, they said that gangs created random numbers then used them try to make small purchases.
When a number was not rejected, they knew that it fitted a card somewhere and tried all the combinations of the security number until one was accepted.
They were now in possession of a genuine card number and security code without any contact with the holder and could go on a spending spree!
Scary stuff - glad the bank was on the ball.
Welcome to my hell. I "think" I have my debit card sorted out. I basically told my bank that in the next six months I could be anywhere in half of North America. Hope I'm covered.
Shazam called me a couple of weeks ago and informed me that someone had tried to use my card to put 3000 dollars on western union. I told them not only was it not me, I didn't even have 3000 bucks, they froze my card. I called the bank the next morning and they ordered me a new card. This is the second time this has happened in the last year. Since it's my business card, I don't use it a lot except at suppliers and the occasional trip to the stop and rob. These credit card thieves are getting smarter by the day and are rarely caught.
I got a call from my bank about a month ago, regarding some suspicious activity on my card. They figured out they were right when I told them I didn't know what the fuck a "groupon" was.
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