Discovered I Became A Crime Victim.....

[bpd1151]

Well.....

 

Funny that fellow EBOF Member Steve142857 created his thread on "How To Spend $1K in 15min" as I can top that.....

 

My family and I were trying to enjoy our last couple of days of vacation and due to the rain that traversed the Southern MI area yesterday, we decided to take the kids out to BattleCreek, MI. to enjoy some shopping for school clothes at the mall, went to a movie, and then finished up by going out to dinner.

 

Well, come to find out, I presented my Debit Card for payment of dinner, and the card was declined.

 

Puzzled, as I know we still had several hundred dollars still available for use, I politely apologized to our waitress and pulled out cash to cover the bill.

 

So, the ride back to my Dad's Summer Cottage was needless to say, NOT a pleasant one. I was pissed that our bank probably froze our account, and for reason(s) that I suspected were due to a myriad of out-of-state expenses that had occurred, back to back.

 

To top it off, due it being after normal bank hours, I was unable to get a hold of anyone until this morning (normal business hours) as the 24hr service that was available was only for the reporting of lost, or stolen cards (neither of which applied in my case).

 

So we arrive back at my Dad's, I hop onto the laptop real quick, log onto our bank/checking account, and low and behold, I discover two, separate, unauthorized charges, totalling almost $1,000!!!

 

Holy Sh!t I thought to myself!

 

Now, rather than being pissed off at the bank, I am now thankful they froze my debit card, to prevent any further damage.

 

Both charges occurred within 2 minutes of eachother. Scary stuff :RpS_scared:

 

So my wife and I do a lil digging, and the unauthorized charges were completed by unknown person(s) who apparently purchased train / rail line tickets in Berlin, Germany of all places (DB Bahn).

 

So I was able to top Steve's "How To Spend $1K in 15min" story/thread..... with "How To Be Swindled Out Of $1K in 2MIN" story of my own.

 

Luckily, due to my contacts at my local LE Agency, I was able to complete a Police Report over the telephone (this morning), however, our banking institution insisted that we come into their facility to process and fill out the paper work in person.

 

So we unfortunately had to break the news to the kids that we had to cut our vacation short, only to return home, and fill out this crap from the bank.

 

Turns out, that they had my work number, and home phone number on file (not my cell) and since I was neither at work, or at home, it was kind of a moot point on their part to call us at either of those numbers, in order to forewarn us of the impending action to restrict access to our account.

 

So, we updated our contact numbers, and also learned that you can notify your banking institution of when (or where) you'll be out of state, in case contact needs to be made accordingly. A good heads up/fyi type of thing for all of you who may be travelling anytime in the future.

 

The final straw that really broke the camel's back is that today is literally, the wife and I's 16th wedding Anniversary, so we both just kind of looked at each other, laughed (but only slightly) and exchanged a hug and said to eachother in an almost odd manner "Happy Anniversary".

 

So, we made it back in time to file all of the paperwork at the bank, sounds like they're going to reverse the charges, however it'll take 7-10 days to do so, in the meantime, we had to transfer money from other accounts in order to prevent any NSF charges from accruing (which the bank said they'd reverse also) but knowing I had pre-paid a bunch of pending and incoming bills due to our vacation, I didn't want to create any additional work for us, or for our bank, so in the end, w/e :frusty:

 

Just felt I needed to vent a lil bit, thanks for lending the ear (or eyes since y'all read this instead) :yo:

 

Mike

[Paulford8]

That sucks. Normally they make small charges to see if it will work before hitting a big money charge. Hope you get it all straight!

[casperl878]

mike, damn thats horrible and sucks bro, sorry to hear all the stupid extra crazy stuff espcecially on vaca with the fam. well i hope it all works out bor the better and things get situated then.

[Crash712us]

Bummer Dude, I hate when stuff like that happens and you have to wait to the next day to sort out. But I am glad it did get sorted out for you. But as to your guys anniversary give you a open door opportunity to totally surprise her with something, maybe just a weekend get away to a nice restaurant and hotel will score you many brownie points.

[mjhpadi]

Can sure relate to this experience. We had a similar experience only a few months ago. Wife tried to use our Discover Card to purchase something (can't remember what) and it was declined....of course she thought son or I had ran up the bill....she called Discover only to find that they had shut off the account because of 2 strange charges. Turns out someone had tried to use the card to purchase $800.00 of stuff at the Apple store. Thankfully, it wasn't approved and they stopped all charges to the account. Discover couldn't have been better, sent us new cards with new account, sent them UPS overnight! We believe we know how our account was hacked. There was only once that the card was out of our sight and that was when were at a restaurant for dinner one evening. It was shortly after that our account was hacked. Hope everything works out, it's a bummer, but good that the bank caught the bad charges and you are not getting stuck with them.

[vernonator]

So in real life I manage the information security team for a fortune 250 company. First things first - for those that use your debit card anywhere else but an ATM stop. As Mike has discovered it is MUCH more difficult to get your money back than if this happens with a credit card. I have had my CC number compromised at least 3 times, and it has never cost me a cent or taken more than a few minutes on the phone to stop the transactions and be on my way.

 

Hopefully Mike as lucky enough to get this fixed before he started bouncing checks/ACH payments, because the vendors recieving those will not care WHY, just that he did and will slap fees on him that (most likely) his bank will NOT refund. If a vendor is pissy enough they may/can report his payment as late which can impact his credit score.

 

So the safe thing to do is to ALWAYS use a credit card and just pay it off at the end of the billing cycle, you can even make this work for you by getting a points/miles card, I get several flights a year free by putting litterly everything I do on my points card. From gas to a $1.50 pop at the kwiki-mart it all goes on the card.

 

Hope you get it all sorted out Mike...

[bpd1151]

Thanks.

 

I've been with the same banking institution for almost 20 years now, with several accounts.

 

I left the bank confident the charges would be reversed, so I'm breathing a lil easier now.

 

Turns out the bank did try to call me several times, however, they had my home phone, and my work phone number(s) only for w/e odd reasons.

 

So because they couldn't get a hold of me, that is what triggered their response to freeze just my debit card alone. Wife's was still intact and functioning fine (which we hadn't found out until later).

 

So, it was partially my fault I suppose for not verifying and/or updating the correct numbers. As I told the bank rep "I'm glad your bank tried to call, but I'm on vacation, I was at neither home, or at work".

 

Which is how I got the info I did about calling the bank ahead of time, to simply notify them of being out of town, etc.

 

I was also told that they WOULD reverse any NSF's that may have been assessed as there is a $500 "cushion" to cover such occurrences.

 

But like I told the bank rep as we were transferring funds from one account, to the checking account (to cover the theft).... "Why would I create more work for you, or for me? I'll just move stuff around to cover it for now, until you guys get done with your investigation".

 

She seemed please with that, but I mean it is, what it is...... so who knows :noidea:

 

I couldn't help but think while watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, that someone, somewhere overseas, was riding, or had ridden the trains on my dime.

 

Still frustrating none the less :frusty:

[RedCandySHO]

Must be the week for it. My bank called the other day saying my debit card info had been stolen and they wanted to replace my card. Apparently someone's website got hacked and they stole a bunch of card data. Now I am wondering if it was a automotive related site.....

Luckily I didn't loose any money....

Did you bank reimburse you the money?

[casperl878]

i had a automotive site charges about 2-3 weeks ago when someone hacked my debit card number, they did a small charge for under a dollar to see if it worked and it did then they tried a larger amount and got denied, i got a email that looked EXACTLY like a paypal account logo email asking to update all my info,name,address credit card/debit card info and i didnt wondering why and they said if wasnt them and it was a fake so i guess watch out for that also with paypal emails, they said if paypal sends a email it will always say to you using your full name this fake email said deal value customer or something like that, just a fyi

[sixtn39]

Me too. Thursday I bought a birthday gift for a friend in Madison, WI with a MasterCard CC. 30 minutes later a purchase at Trader Joe's, also in Madison, was declined. Turns out 8 minutes after my gift purchase someone attempted an online purchase of software in Dublin, Ireland.

 

MC account was closed and 19 hours later UPS delivered 2 new MC's to my home.

 

This is the 2nd time with a CC and 5th time over all (3 with debit cards) for me.