Fraud

Yesterday I had to deal with the fallout of my debit card being hijacked. It never left my possession, so someone either hacked a database somewhere or wrote down the card information during a valid transaction I made in person. Also, when I went to my very first yoga class with my therapist, I left my purse in a cubby with my shoes and covered with a clean shirt. It was in there for an hour and a half.As we left, Therapist was late for another session so we were in hurry. I left my purse in the cubby. I called them when I realized what I'd done, and they found it and put it behind the desk up front. That's the only time the card was out of my direct possession; about two and a half hours. I'm not saying someone there did this. Whatever. whoever did was able to make online purchases with the card number, including the "security number" (HA!) on the back..

There was a message on the answering machine from the fraud something-or-other department at my credit union from around 8:30 p.m. that I didn't notice until 10:30. It gave an 800 number for me to call to verify some questionable charges. The lady who answered asked me a couple of code questions to make sure who I was, and then read off the charges to me. One of them was for over $3000 at an electronics vendor site. Whoever it was didn't know me very well if they thought I had that much money in my account. They blocked the card right then, but there was nothing further to be done until morning.

Per her instructions, I called the credit union. It's lucky they are open on Saturday mornings. The lady there went through some code word verifications of my identity and then read of the same charges as the lady the night before. She asked if the card had been blocked, and I told her the lady who called Friday night said she'd done that.

Since I live and die by my debit card, I needed to get a replacement right away. The credit union has one branch that can provide a replacement card while you wait. It's eight or ten miles from my house, but it was worth it.

They were very pleasant when I got there, and another lady went through the charges with me, verified all I had told the other ladies, and had me fill in some paperwork. She issued me a new card, and that was that. Took maybe a half hour or forty-five minutes.

My friend was supposed to come over to do yoga with me in the late morning. With all the hubbub, I didn't feel up to anything emotionally or physically. All the worry and activity and focusing with my currently limited mental resources had been draining. I called to ask her if we could postpone it to today, and told her the story.

She works for a different credit union, and told me there was more for me to do to protect myself: call the police to file a fraud report, contact the three credit bureaus to put fraud alerts on my records, set up a code word with the credit union to make sure anyone trying to make a transaction with my debit card would have to know it to do anything. I forgot to do that last part. I'm not really sure how that would work. Would I get a phone call every time one of my automatic payments went through? That's a lot of phone verifications.

She said the concern is not knowing how the person got hold of my card info. If they'd just gotten it off the card at some place it had been used, it's not as big a deal as if they'd hacked into a database somewhere. If the latter had happened, they could have all the information they need to completely steal my identity. The credit union has all my information in their database, as does VISA. Everything anyone would need to become me and turn my life upside down.

At least putting the fraud alerts with the credit bureaus means I would have to get a phone call every time someone tried to open an account in my name or with my information, my friend said. The code word thing--I'm going to call my credit union on Monday and find out how that would work. I'm also going to contact all the vendors who do direct withdrawals on my account automatically, and see if I can arrange direct bill pay from my side, so even if a card is compromised again, they will still get their payments on time from the account itself.

This way, I don't have to give them information about my card, but if they will give me an account number to set up to receive the payment, I can set it up on my end. If not, I'll get the system to cut them a check at the right time of the month on a recurring basis. There are a couple like that now, and it's worked well.

What fun, eh? My head isn't screwed up enough right now--I have to deal with fraud and theft, too. At least I didn't go into a full-blown crying jag. Just kept choking up. Yoga breathing helped. Yoga seems like it may help deal with emotions better. As much as I hate exercise and most strenuous activity for its own sake, this seems worth the sweat.