I go to check my credit card balance online, checking to see if the Secret Paypal Security Code Thing has been sent yet. And I find that my account has been closed and a new card WITH A NEW ACCOUNT NUMBER has been mailed to me.
I cannot believe this. This happened two years ago, and it took me DAYS to get everything straightened out, and I missed my website host, and so when the payment was once again due, my account was cancelled and, within hours, someone else snatched up my domain name.
I called Citibank, and they told me they couldn’t tell me anything except that this current thing involves a very large number of cards. They said MasterCard might be able to tell me more, so I hunted and hunted until I found their regional number, in San Antonio.
San Antonio my ass. If that woman has ever set foot on the North American continent, I will eat my fucking shoes. I HATE discussing money, or phones, or any of the things I hate discussing ANYWAY, with someone I can barely understand. And who does that totally annoying thing of filling in the gaps with “As I told you,” or “as you can see,” or “I understand,” or any of a dozen other language-gap fillers. That just Drive Me Insane.
So the only thing I discovered: they cannot tell me anything except that my credit card was one of many, many cards that may possibly have been compromised. Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows? They say they can’t tell you what business it was until “the investigation is complete.” But you never, ever hear another word about it. I’ve never heard anything from the last time this happened. And here it is, happening again. Through absolutely no fault of my own. And what if it’s the same business, like amazon.com or something? Wouldn’t you want to know that? I would.
Although amazon.com is, like, the LAST thing I would want to give up. Pretty much.
In case I didn’t mention it, this shit drives me nuts. The credit card companies go on and on about how secure they are, how they have all these measures in place. OK, good: so they caught it. But the fact that they prevented someone from charging stuff to my account doesn’t do squat to help me go through and give the number to all the companies that bill my card:
Skype
website
itsmysite.com
amazon.com
clearwire, for phone and internet
libsyn, for pod hosting
Netflix
Sirius
Then there are the places that have the info on file to make shopping easier, like Dharma Trading.
You know, the good thing about this is: I may give up the website. It doesn’t cost that much, but I don’t do anything with it, and I don’t know that it’s that useful to me. I think I’ll give up Skypeout, too, as I can’t make it work well enough to use it. Only $2.95 a month, but that would be one fewer account requiring new info.
Maybe this is actually a good thing, weeding out the various companies that don’t really need my business. Maybe it’s time to stick to Paypal, with whom—so far, knock on wood—I have had no trouble. Except those weasely little charges. . . .
Jesus, this is annoying. Makes me really stop and think how dependent my life is on technology.
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11 comments:
That hasn't happened to me - yet. But when it does, I'm so borrowing this post from you! You nailed down the annoyance and frustration.
There was a report on the news the other night about a huge break in CA involving credit cards and numbers.
I feel your pain. I had my CC # stolen and it's the one I use for pretty much everything-argh.
I went through exactly the same thing with PayPal.
It was a pain in the ass. AND it pissed off people on ebay whose auctions I had won. I couldn't pay through PayPal (the only acceptable payment now) until the new card arrived, and, naturally, they all want their money like yesterday.
However, I do have to remember - as much as this is a pain in the ass - 20 years ago, having a credit card problem actually involved weeks and weeks of SNAIL mail correspondence.
Small satisfaction when you can't use your PayPal account though - which I use every day - usually several times a day.
P.S.
I've gotten to the point now that I simply tell people in India that I can't understand a word they're saying and to please connect me with something who speaks English more clearly.
Believe it or not, it works out perfectly well 99.9% of the time.
You gotta figure, they're frustrated too - they can't understand us either LOL>
I understand how pissed off you are. I'm feeling a bit the same but for a different reason. We own Motels in Glenorchy. Yesterday I got an email asking for a reservation for one month. This person asked if I accepted credit cards for payment, and nothing else. Anyway a few other things set the alarm bells ringing and I knew this was a scam email. So I rang the bank...the bank decided that yes this probably was a scam. It works like this:- The scammer makes a reservation and pre pays the whole lot on their stolen card, then they say Granny just died and they have to cancel, please send their refund to some obscure bank in Timbuktu. Next the bank tells me I have used a stolen card and they take back the money taken from it. I'm left out of pocket if I was silly enough to fall for it in the first place. The thing that annoyed me though, was that the bank had no interest in catching these arseholes, or even in letting the card holder know that their card was being used by someone else, they were only concerned that the bank wasn't getting ripped off. The only thing I could do was to get a bank authorisation to use the card for the amount, then not to use it. This should let the card holder know that something is going on with their card. I also emailed this scammer to say the card had been declined in the hope they wouldn't use it on another scam. This person has just emailed me back with another card number to try. So although it is a real bummer having your card frozen etc, at least you haven't been ripped off, like some poor business on the other end of this scamming thing (May all scammers have to suffer for the vast amount of pain they cause)
This happened to me but my bank just issued a new credit card ( in case my number had been one that was compromised) with the same CC number! The only change was the 3 digit number on the back!
(hey)Jude
same thing happened to me about 2 months ago. i had just used PayPal for a transaction, and it went thru my credit card company fine. next day i tried to use PayPal to add money to my Skype account, and it got kicked back. they directed me to my credit card company, which immediately identified the questionable transaction (for all of $1), which they thought could have been a "feeler" of some kind just to see if it would go through. they were very helpful, took care of the problem, sent me security forms to fill out and return, and meanwhile i got my new card in about a week. annoying yes, but i was glad they were paying attention to the charges that were hitting my card. i appreciated their security efforts and the fact that they caught it so quickly. yes, a pain the arse to have deal with it, but they were on top of the problem like white on rice, so i can't complain. ok, maybe i can, but still and all, a job well done ;)
I hate have to talk to people in foreign countries, I never can understand them.
I already told you what happened to me so I can only suggest you do what I do the next time "Jane" or "Robert" is at the other end of the phone: ask them how is the weather in Delhi or Mumbai. Then tell them you appreciate what they are trying to do but unfortunately you don't speak Hindi so you need to talk to someone who speaks English.
Love your blog. Been reading a while now.
This cc thing happened to me too, only it was a Visa card, and it happened in late March. I was told that my card was compromised by a vendor but that they couldn't tell me who compromised it. Since I rarely use this card, I'm suspicious that it's someone connected to the cc companies themselves. Wouldn't be a surprise.
i wouldn't be a bit surprised if it's the CC companies themselves. i was wrong--this didn't happen to me two years ago; it was 13 months ago. i suspect it was either the $1.95 charge from paypal or the CC company because i always pay out every month and don't carry a balance = i'm not making any money for them and they probably wish i'd go away.
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