It Happened Again

After arriving home late Saturday night, I still managed to wake up around 6:30 on Sunday morning. Since I didn't have any studying to do (we had a guest speaker during the Bible class hour), I decided to peruse iTunes for some Avett Brothers tunes. Seeing as how I didn't know very many songs at the show on Saturday night, I figured I needed to download some of their music so that maybe next time I will also want to jump up and down like Maria.

I found a set of songs I wanted to download but rather than smoothly downloading, I received an error message that the transaction had been declined. I looked at the card number on file at iTunes (my debit card) and it was entered correctly. Rather than try to figure out what was going on with this card, I just entered in the information for my credit card and the songs downloaded. Strange, yes, but not all that unusual as I had some problems with my card on iTunes around Christmas time because I had not downloaded any songs in a long while.

During church I received a phone call, but it was a 1-800 number so I didn't leave worship to answer it and to be honest didn't think much else about it after I declined the call. When services were over, I went to Publix to pick up a few things because I had to make some food for a funeral of one of our members. Then I went to Newk's to get some lunch for myself and tried to use my debit card (I had used my credit card at Publix) and the card was declined so I had to use my credit card. I had no idea what was going on, but I was concerned at this point.

On the way home, I stopped by the ATM to see if I could get some information. I selected a balance inquiry (even though I had checked my balance that morning and all was okay) and the transaction would not go through. I received a message that said to contact my institution and thought to myself, um, this is my institution.

I went home and ate my lunch and then prepared to call my bank. I realized I had a voice mail and checked it first. It was from the call I had received during church and was alerting me to possible fraudulent charges on my debit card. I called the number and spoke with a nice girl who went through all the recent charges with me and indeed they were all fraudulent, with the exception of the Pet Store where I had taken The Tide on Saturday morning to give her a bath. The girl canceled my debit card and told me to contact my bank about having a new one issued.

This morning, I went to my bank at 9:00 a.m. when they doors opened and spoke with another nice lady. She made sure my card had been cancelled (it had) and issued me a new one. She also filled out paperwork disputing the pending fraudulent transactions. There were far fewer transactions pending than I had been told about on the phone Sunday and the lady at the bank said that I will have to come back in and dispute those separately if they show up. I'm hoping they won't show up so I don't have to spend any more time on this matter.

So, for the second time in a month someone has stolen my card information. This is really becoming annoying. Thankfully this was stopped before it got out of hand. I don't know how the card companies know to notify you when there are possible fraudulent charges but I'm glad they do! The lady at the bank said someone could have hacked into the pet store information since that was my last transaction or a dishonest employee somewhere could have gotten the information and used it. She also told me she had some customers who had their social security number stolen and didn't know until they went to file taxes and the government would not accept their return because someone had already filed under their number! It's a scary and crazy world we are living in! Be sure and watch your information as closely as you can!