Wifey called me on Monday to let me know there wasn’t enough money in the checking account for the house payment to go through. I didn’t think I’d spent too much. Checked the account and found two charges I wasn’t familiar with, but they hadn’t gone through so I couldn’t see what they were and thought I might have lost my marbles.
Fast forward to that night, completely forgot about the charges and put a few dollars toward dinner via my check card. Tuesday, I went home early feeling a bit sick and the wifey reminded me of the issue. Checked online and found FOUR charges that I most CERTAINLY didn’t put on my card. I got up and went to the bank, but they gave me a number to call, telling me they couldn’t do anything from the bank. I called the number the bankg gave me to make a dispute but they told me that if I cancel my card, anything I put through on it will be rejected if it hasn’t already posted. The dinner hadn’t gone through yet so I was forced to wait. Did some research online and found both companies were websites selling primarily PDA and PDA software. I found a phone number for one and rang them up. Very cooperative folks, they understood my plight and not only refunded the money back to my account, they gave me the name and email address the perp used to download the software. They only had a first name which he noted was odd. Couldn’t find the number to the second place so I sent them an email. The owner responded within fifteen minutes by calling me direct. I explained the situation, he looked up the information in his database and found a first and last name and the same email addy as the first one. He wouldn’t credit me back without the bank getting in on the situation. I thanked him for the info.
Fast forward to yesterday. I verify everything is ready and I call the bank fraud line. I open a case and offer my research and she tells me to call this other number with my case information. When she gives me the phone number, it’s the same one I called! I call back, get someone else and let them know what I had done and they let me know they do their own research. It will take 5 - 10 days before the forms for my avidavit come in the mail or to speed things up, I can go to my local bank and fill out the forms there. What? Yes, of course, they can always begin these proceedings from the bank branch. Apparently they don’t know that at my local branch. So now I’m having to wait up to 10 days to get the paperwork, wait an additional 5 - 10 days for them to receive it and begin an investigation at which point they will credit me back the money I lost. In the meantime, my house payment goes through and I get a negative balance and a fine for that. Can I explain this to anyone? NO!
I was planning on closing my checking account with this bank after my house payment went through because we’re not using the account anymore. Now I have to leave it open for who knows how long and I have to hope this twerp doesn’t have any of my other information. Now I’m taking BOTH accounts I have with this bank and shutting them down right as soon as I can.
Oh, and I did a lookup on the name I had from the two places. Only one shop had a first and last name. Did a switchboard search and found ONE in the US, located in Washington State. I really hope they find the person and prosecute.
What really gets me is I’m typically very safe with my information. It’s not sitting on my computer, I typically buy from reputable merchants online and only recently purchased from someone on eBay, but that was done via PayPal so I don’t know how they’d get my information. I don’t click on any links in email asking me to update my information, I go straight to the website by typing in the URL I know to be correct. I just can’t figure out how they’ve done it and now I’m paranoid that someone has more information on me.