On Saturday October 1st, I woke up early to take photos at the Hudson Tennis match. Before I went, I thought I would give my email a once over, and that is when I saw a message from Discover, my credit card company. It said there had been some unusual activity on my card, showing three balances. One was from Logan’s, where my wife and I had eaten the night before, but the other two were from IKEA and Fiesta Mart, both in Houston. The thing is, I have never even been to IKEA nor Fiesta Mart, much less spent the nearly $1200 dollars it said I had. I was the victim of credit card fraud. The week prior, I had used the Discover card to purchase gas from a local station. A few days later, a news story
ran on how police had discovered a scanner that had been placed on
the exact pump I used.
The scanner scans your card
and steals the
number. The
thieves then
took my number
and bought
furniture and
groceries with it in
Houston. I definitely can’t say
that I wasn’t worried when I
read the email. I really didn’t
want to have to pay $1200
for stuff someone else
bought.
Luckily, Discover found the
irregularity and notified me.
It was a pain to cancel my
card and to wait on another
to be delivered, not to
mention the frustration of
trying to switch over all my
bills
and
payments to
the new card number,
but at least I got the
spending stopped there, before
it really got out of hand. The credit
card company also did not make me pay for the fraudulent charges. They have a guarantee that no customer has to pay for unauthorized purchases.
Credit cards are a necessity in this day and age, at least for me. I have no idea how anyone can function without one. I fought it for years and payed cash for everything, but I finally had to give in. Automatic bill pays, Amazon, and Ebay made sure of that.
Everything worked out in the
end, but I was sure
concerned for several
days.
When trying to
decide on a credit
card, make
sure it has
fraud
protection and
some sort of
assurance that
you wont be charged if
someone steals your card.
It happened to me, and it
could happen to anyone.
Thieves can wreck
credit scores, empty bank
accounts, and do it all
without every even seeing
their victim. It is an
unavoidable product of the
time we live in.