Debit Card Fraud

Update on my debit card being hijacked.
(Story begins on May 20th with my post All you need is Love...)

Oh, and I got the world's best news ever (for this week at least!). After waking up last Wednesday to find that my account had been hacked, and that I could possibly be indebted ($760) to my bank over it... I physically went to my bank today to talk to them. The charges are being disputed, and I had gotten 2 of the 4 stopped by calling paypal, and c28.com and telling them my account had been compromised. They(Paypal and c28.com) were more than willing to help. Also, while at my bank I closed the hacked account, and opened a new one, and even got a credit card for my online buying. I'm all set! Oh, most important part. My bank is going to credit my account for the amount of the fake charges, and take care of my overdraft fees and everything. I about cried when the bank lady told me that. I could have kissed her, but I think that would have freaked her out, and gotten me nowhere... Hehehe. (Oh, and tip for everyone. Use your credit card, not debit card/checking account when buying online. There is more protection, since they don't have access to your actual money. Learned this one the hard way...)

Last Friday before leaving for our fabulous Second Annual Camp Buffalo Solja, I got a call from UPS double checking my address for a package to be delivered to my address. For someone that doesn't live in my apartment. I was confused by the name, then asked where the package was sent from. Italy. "Did someone really make a purchase with my card, in Italy*, and send it to me?!" Yeah, they had. I told the UPS guy on the other end of the line what had happened, and picked them up from the office. Someone had ordered Italian F***ing leather shoes, and sent them to me. I cannot tell you how mad I was over that one. More mad than the Christian apparel website that had (thankfully)declined my card.
I must admit, that I really, really, really wanted to open the box o' expensive shoes** and check them out, but decided not to. I am going to send them back, and hopefully get the bank a refund for them.

All throughout, my bank has been absolutely awesome about this. I got a shiny new debit card, a new credit card***, and a new bank account. They also are taking care of all the overdraft fees, and reimbursing me for the fraudulent charges.

I'm relieved that I got everything taken care of within a couple of weeks. My brother-in-law had his identity stolen and it took him forever to get it cleared up. His was more complicated, because it wasn't just a few hundred dollars of fake charges on a card. Someone had bought a truck, racked up a s**tload of debt, and all sorts of other fun stuff, all in his name. His SSN had been leaked by a previous employer, and mine was just my debit card number. I got lucky!



*In the previous post about this, I refer to a blank website, turns out it wasn't blank. You can order some really fancy expensive stuff off of there. (I picked the shoes up from UPS, because I was worried that someone was waiting for them to be delivered so they could steal them off my porch...)
**also to see if they were my size *cough*cough*
***for future online purchases.