Mayday
On Sunday, I swiped my check card to pay for $113 of groceries. When I went to sign the credit card screen, the amount to be charged to my card appeared as $67. With warning bells clanging in my head, I tried to keep my voice casual as I pointed it out to the cashier, who muttered, “That’s weird.” He stabbed a few buttons on his register before turning back to me and saying in what sounded like a record playing at half-speed: “Looks like that’s all you have available in your account.”
At this point, Jason, who was bagging groceries with the skill and precision reserved for either very conscientious people or those with some kind of undiagnosed space-maximizing disorder, realized something was wrong and asked, “What’s going on?”
It took me a moment to respond, because my mind was on a very long trip, imagining all kinds of scenarios (none good), and knowing instantly that something Very Bad Had Happened because I should’ve had about $1,500 in my account. I paid the rest of the balance with a credit card while Jason repeated his question. I finally returned from my mindtrip to awfulness (to quote from Stephen King’s The Jaunt: “It’s longer than you think!”) to say, “I think someone stole money from my checking account.”
As Jason finished bagging the groceries, telling me not to freak out (I ignored him), I imagined a viewfinder of possibilities: Click. Someone in Singapore ordering a caseload of Snuggies. Click. Some teenage hacker emptying my account to buy an Xbox. Click. A waitress jotting down my card number at a restaurant. Click. Crackheads buying whatever it is crackheads buy.
Luckily, my bank had a location right in the grocery store, so I walked the 15 feet (the 15 looooong, kaleidoscope-of-nightmares feet) to the nearest bank teller. (Thank God this hadn’t happened the night before when I was at a Buffalo Wild Wings at midnight paying our bill – that would’ve SUCKED.)
When I approached the teller and told her my situation, she pulled up my account and then proceeded to tell me in a quiet, measured tone reserved for idiots, “Well, you have some pending transactions that might’ve put you over your balance.” I calmly told her (I hope, but who knows – my mind was a buzzing white slate at that point) that I should have had nearly $1,500 in my account and could she please stop giving me a lecture on Basic Budgeting Concepts and just print out my most recent transactions?
She handed me a printout and I scanned the page. Everything appeared to be OK at first until I saw a transaction to Qwest – for $447. Two things became clear: 1) My phone bill is NEVER that high, and 2) I don’t use Qwest. It was official: Someone had stolen my check card number. (Not the card, which I still had in my possession, but the number, which opened up a whole ‘nother frightening can o’ worms – how did they get it?)
I quickly found two more transactions that were not mine: one for $279 to Sprint (again, not my phone carrier) and one for $404 to Xcel Energy (whom we do have an account with, but our bill is NEVER that high and we never pay electronically, only with a check).
I asked the teller what our next steps should be, and here’s where she failed us: “Oh, you have to contact all the vendors and ask them to refund your money,” she chirped, as if it were that simple: Oh, hello, vendor! Those hundreds of dollars of charges? Yep, not mine! Refund them immediately! Cheerio! As Jason said later: “That girl at the bank? Definitely the C-Squad.”
When we pressed her for more info, she told us that if that didn’t work (I mean, why wouldn’t it?), we could return to the bank and file a claim. Fantastic. In the meantime, we canceled my old check card and put in a request for a new one (which meant no access to my account for 10 days – whee! But, on the positivity side: Thank God this didn’t happen while on vacation) and transferred money from my savings to replenish my depleted checking account. (Also, Thank God I had enough money in my account and caught it before I was overdrawn. Also, also, our mortgage check cleared the very next day. If THAT had gotten caught up in this vortex of suck and I would’ve had to spend God-knows-how-long on the phone with them, after previously having to spend nearly six months straightening out something that was their error, I would’ve died.)
The teller then dismissed us and I engaged in an epic internal struggle (that I barely won) called Trying Not to Cry in a Dimly Lit Grocery Store While a Freezing Wind Outside Blows Dead Leaves Around the Gray Sky Like an Appropriate Metaphor for Life.
“This SUCKS!” I sniffled in the car on the way home, as Jason agreed wholeheartedly. When we got home, we unloaded the groceries, me in a slow-moving daze pinballing back and forth aimlessly and Jason as a whirlwind of efficiency. Without him, I probably would’ve crawled under the covers and tried to sleep it all away. But he kept me on task, telling me exactly what we were going to do and when we were going to do it.
Our first order of business was to go online and look at my account again because the teller we spoke to assured us there were no more transactions when what she meant was she hadn’t looked beyond the first page on her computer screen. We saw two more questionable transactions: one for $229 to AT&T (still not my phone carrier!) and a duplicate charge to Netflix, which I at first dismissed because I actually DO have a Netflix account. While I tried to get warm (I was chilled to the bone), we added up the total: $1,354. [F***************ck.]
We gathered customer service phone numbers for each of the places and sat down at the kitchen table. I told Jason he didn’t need to sit with me, but he insisted. He’s a keeper.
We tried AT&T first, and after finally bypassing their automatic menu that demanded either my AT&T phone number or my account number (of which I had neither), we spoke to a very nice gentleman who attempted to help us. Since the only info I had was the date and amount of the transaction, there was little he could do. He tried searching for the 9-digit code I gave him that was after “AT&T” on the memo line of my printout, but that led nowhere. After sympathetically apologizing and telling me that they “probably” wouldn’t dispute it if my bank reversed the charges, I thanked him and realized I’d get the same treatment from the others. I had no info to give them; I didn’t have accounts with them, so they couldn’t even see that I didn’t have a bill for that amount (the Xcel transaction appeared to be with a third-party collector that collected late fees – GREAT).
We decided to call TCF directly, which was the right call. As I was on hold for a live human, TCF’s automated menu cheerfully reminded me that using my TCF check card was “easy and safe.” Except, you know, when it’s not. At this point, the reality that nearly $1,400 had been stolen was starting to hit me. “What if I never get this money back?” I asked. “You will,” Jason said. “But I don’t even know how they GOT it in the first place. What’s to prevent them from taking it again?” He shrugged.
TCF then helped me file a claim over the phone, being alternately sympathetic (“so sorry this happened”) and horrified (“that’s a total of…let’s see…”$1,354 – oh my God!”), and directed me to fax a statement to their Fraud Department the next day detailing what happened.
Afterwards, I felt better. I had taken some action (with Jason’s patient guidance), I had canceled my card, transferred money, filed a claim. I had done all I could do.
Curious, I called Netflix about the duplicate charge. And surprise! They confirmed that someone had used my check card number to sign up for Netflix. Let me repeat this so you can bask in their stupidity: Someone (with a name and address) had signed up to be billed monthly for a Netflix account with my card number. Netflix immediately told me that they would refund my money (which they have) and put a hold on the other account. Unfortunately, legally they couldn’t give me the information, probably because the customer service rep read my mind and knew exactly what I would do.
So! We potentially had a name. A name attached to a stupid, jerky person. Only Netflix requires a warrant to give out that info, so the next morning I called the local police department and filed a report, which felt both depressing (as in, I’m sure I’m one of a million people this has happened to) and hopeful (the amount stolen is enough to consider it a felony, so my case is being bumped up to the Detective Division, which means I hope David Caruso is handling it). The officer was sincere and thorough, and was cautiously optimistic about the possible Netflix lead.
And that is where everything stands today: the police are looking into it, TCF is investigating the charges, and I have no access to my checking account until my new check card arrives. But I feel OK. People are coming up to me left and right and sharing their similar stories, and luckily, so far everyone has had their money returned to them.
That’s all I want.
That and for the people who did this to experience karma in its truest form.
