Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Thieves!


I'm sorry that this is going to be more of a venting post than anything else! But as I reviewed my checking account this morning (a daily event for me in my morning routine at work) . . . I noticed that there was a semi-large charge for some Amazon Gift Certificates. Now I haven't bought anything on Amazon in a while nor did I buy any gift certificates. But I called Rob to see if he might have bought any (I didn't know why he would either but we share the account so I had to make sure). It was an unknown charge to him as well. So I started getting pretty upset. I called up my bank and got a hold of a customer service rep who helped me file a claim and was only able to tell me that whoever did it - used MY debit card or at least my debit card account number. I canceled the card and now have to go to my bank and pick up a new one. The bank will decide in a few days whether or not to credit me back the money that was taken out due to this purchase that I never made.

Arizona had the highest number of cases of identity theft in the US last year. A really scary statistic. As a result - I feel like I'm on the overly cautious side! I bought a shredder a few months ago and shred everything that has personal information on it and have a locked file drawer for the important documents that I need to keep. I am really not sure how someone was able to get my bank account number and make a purchase! I try and do all my online bill paying using a credit card with identify theft protection on it even.

Nothing really angers me more than people stealing. It just makes you feel so violated! We had a couple of things stolen off of our back porch last year (Now keep in mind that we have a high fenced in yard and we only had the items on our back porch for 2 days while we redid flooring in a couple of rooms of the house) and filed a police report on them. A few months after that - Rob's truck was broken into and things were stolen from it. And a few years back when I was on vacation with my family - our rental van was broken into and I had my whole back pack (journal, purse, wallet, etc) stolen. Now that thief really upset me because items were stolen that were only valuable to me - they had no monetary value. As a result of these things - I have become an extremely paranoid person in regard to anything that could be potentially stolen from me.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

that sucks! now i'm getting paranoid, because i order stuff online all the time. do most credit cards (like a bankone visa) identity theft protected? i should probably look into that! i hope the bank gives you back the money.

Christina said...

The bank should definitely give back the money... if not get a new bank for sure!

Christianne said...

That's crazy! I hope they can figure out how it happened or something - that is strange.

Will and Natalie Giddens said...

That's terrible, but kudos to you for checking your account. Will used to work at a bank and you'd be shocked at the number of people who never check their account and make sure all the charges on there are legitimate. Some folks would come in and file a complaint over charges that had been going on for months! I'm definitely going to be better about my accounts!