Hubby and I had a very nervous situation a few weeks ago. He had just left town, and when I logged into our accounts to see what was clearing/outstanding/owing, I noticed two charges with his debit card totaling almost $250 - at Staples Center in California! He was only a few hours away from home in Michigan, so I quickly called him to make sure this wasn't something legitimate that I just didn't know about.
My mind was racing through all the radio ads and other promotions I'd heard talking about how IdentityHawk offers a comprehensive identity theft solution. Had we waited too long to take identity theft protection seriously? Sure, we were slowly but surely getting settled into our new house, so we knew our credit reports had looked fine a couple months earlier, but had havoc been wreaked since then?
Luckily, I was able to get a hold of hubby (no small feat when he's traveling anyway!), but he didn't recognize the charges. He promptly called the bank who had issued the card and reported the fraud. They informed him of the tedious process we had to go through next - signing affidavits in person about the fraud, of course while using another card and waiting for a new, non-compromised one for hubby to use.
It seems funny in light of all the actual hoops I had to jump through to get life back on track, but we were actually very fortunate that those were the only two fraudulent charges! It's definitely got us thinking more seriously about taking steps to prevent identity theft. Two charges were bad enough, and we had to wait only a couple weeks to get our money back. What if our credit scores and ability to keep our budget stay afloat had been seriously threatened by someone maliciously using more than just our debit card? It's a scary proposition!
2 comments:
Don't you wonder how they got the number too? Glad you caught it so fast.
identity theft can drive you crazy if you think about it long enough. Scary thought and it's got to make you feel helpless. Glad it all worked out for you.
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