Arg!

[telophase]

Got a text from the bank--someone just charged $4700 at Best Buy, and they were asking me if it was an authorized charge. NOPE. So I called them, and yeah, now we've got that account shut down and are waiting on replacement cards.

Man, I had that card for YEARS. I had the number memorized! Phooey.

There had been a weird little charge on March 29th for $9.19 that neither of us could recall, and when I was on hold while the guy at the bank was restarting his system (it was running slow), I Googled the merchant phone number associated with the charge, which hadn't shown up before today, and found out that a lot of people were getting scam charges from a merchant associated with it, sometimes listed as Amazon services. I suspect it was a test charge to see if the card was viable.

Anyway, we're not responsible for it, not even the $50 that the law says we are, which is another reason why we bank with USAA. But it's still a hassle, because that's the card associated with a lot of our online accounts, and lord knows what's going to be bounced in the next few months. Bah, I say. Bah!

Comments

[yhlee]

Yikes, sorry to hear about the hassle. Glad y'all caught it, though!

[telophase]

I love our bank--we find out that this hit within minutes of the charge being made and can take steps, but it's still a huge hassle!

[yhlee]

I hear you--a few years back when something similar happened to us (only in our case it was a bunch of smaller charges that the fraudster was trying to sneak past us, rather than one big one), the bank was really great about working with us, but it was still an annoyance all the same.

[tavella]

I was impressed when they caught a 14 dollar charge at a gas station and texted/emailed me almost immediately asking about it. Annoying I had to change cards, of course, but less annoying than dealing with a $4K charge.

[telophase]

That's impressively quick!

[torachan]

Ugh, that sucks! Glad you won't be liable for the charges, but it's such a pain to go and change all those online accounts.

(I ordered Chinese food the other day and the guy came to the door and said they couldn't charge my card that was on file on the website, so did I have another card, and it was only then I remembered that I'd recently had that card expire and so of course the expiration date was new and that's what had caused the problem.)

[telophase]

Toby's toll tag has been emailing us increasingly strident alerts that it can't charge the next $40 on the card on file*, so could we pleeeease log in and update it. The new cards are due to arrive today, so with luck we can stop those emails.


* The toll tag things around here charge you $40, then count the tolls you incur against that, and when the total drops below $10, charge you another $40. So we still have money in the account for the occasional toll over the past few days, but the system is getting frantic. XD

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Argh. Thieves suck. Hope that's the only problem that comes up from this.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Must be the month for it. Happened to us three weeks ago. Blargh!

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Yay for USAA.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thanks

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The last time it happened, I spotted the charge on my debit card accidentally, as I was checking on the account. It was for some club in, I think, Seattle. I called in, and the rep told me that there had been another charge, for a hotel, that was declined. I could construct the story from there of some guy picking up a girl at a club and the being foiled when the hotel refused to let them stay! (Although he probably had multiple cards on him, to be honest. I prefer my story.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There's a reason I stay with them!