Credit Card Fraud: When You Can Get A Human On The Phone, Things Can Be Done
Posted: Wednesday, February 23, 2011
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
February, 2011 has not been my best month ever. I have a credit card via a credit union I once used regularly before retirement. I used it to have automatic payments for my cell phones and a few other things I deal with on line. It is a great financial institution and I’ve always been happy with their service...I still am, but let me tell you a story.
I have my cell phones on a prepaid plan where your unused minutes roll over, provided you add a stipulated monthly amount of cash. It is set up to come out of my credit card account a couple of days before it would expire and I’d lose my unused minutes. And the lowest amount of time I have had in the past couple of years was over 44 hours worth. You get the picture I hope.
A week ago, I started to make a call and a recorded message came on telling me the call could not be completed because my time on my phone was expired. I angered. I began my favorite ugly talk, repeating over and over, “Cussword! Cussword!”
The recorded lady perhaps anticipated my rage and told me how I could add money to the account online or a number I could call. I opted for the latter since I did not want to add money to the account. But, I got a recording with a menu of options, neither of which suited my mood or my purpose for calling, but I chose the nearest thing to it, and got another menu, same problem, on to another menu. This menu gave me 3 totally unacceptable choices and the choice to return to the main menu. So I started over and changed my route a little, hoping for a choice of talking to a human. No luck. I was on the verge of abandoning my favorite “cussword” and would have done so except I feared it would be sinful. So I sat down and drank a delightful cup of coffee.
I called a local outlet for my phone company and got a human. I explained my problem and he said he could not resolve the problem but he said he could give me a number where I could get a human. He was almost wrong. I did get a human, but he could not help me in the least and gave me another number...guess what I got with the other number. Absolutely, another menu!
After several minutes of manipulation, I finally got a human who barely could help me. I explained that I had over 44 hours time and the automated payment was supposed to keep it up. After making me tell her all my vital statistics, she finally told me the money was not forthcoming because my credit card account had been BLOCKED!! I’m too old to become so angry. I was feeling weak and nervous, short of breath, so I opted for another cup of delicious coffee. But in the meantime she told me that I needed to check with my credit card company to see why it was blocked. And she asked me if I wanted to add more time to my phone using another card. I did and allowed her to use my bank debit card and she said she would see to it that I got my minutes back. You see how beautiful things are when you get to talk to someone?
Phone business settled. NOW, I have to try and find out what had happened to my credit card. And to make another similar story short, I had a blood-pressure raising good time trying to find a human with the credit card company. It turns out that the credit union had their credit cards issued through some other big outfit and after several menu searches again I finally got a human again. This lady told me that they had placed a block on my account because of a suspicious looking charge that had hit it. She asked me if I had attempted to make a $900+ charge to a camera company for some equipment. Again I almost used an authentic cuss word, but decided against it. So instead I just said.....”sputter-sputter NO!” She said they had rejected it and placed a block on my account and now that I had verified that I did not make the purchase, they would kill the account and issue me a new card.
Today, I received an email from my coffee company warning me that my credit card could have been compromised! They said that their internet provider notified them that their site had been hacked and that some of the credit card numbers may have been stolen. I then called the credit card company back on the line where I got humans and asked them to verify if any purchases had been among the possible frauds and she named them off to me...All mine. No payouts that I did not authorize. Makes one breathe easier.
So, now, I think I’ll go have a cup of coffee.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Daddy, this was so amusing to read but I know how frustrating and scary it must have been for you! I'm so glad it all worked out well. (and I'm glad you can enjoy your coffee again) ;-)
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