Well, it seems this week was just full rants. Why should the last day of the week be any different? Today, I have no news story for you, but I do have a personal experience to share that really had the blood boiling this week. So, it's obviously the eve of Christmas Eve, and most people are either wrapping their gifts or finishing up their Christmas shopping. Most have done their shopping at a Mall and have been there since Black Friday. There's another population of you who have done your Christmas shopping online, which might be one of the most dangerous ways to shop.
This week, my girlfriend got a call from her bank suspending her bank card due to 'irregular activity'. At first, we thought that it might be from the day before when we finished up our Christmas shopping, and we spent more on that card than usual, but then she went online to take a look at the account and noticed that there was a $600 charge at Hugo Boss, a $700 charge from Piperlime (The Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic), a $50 charge from a dating sight called Chemistry.com, and a new profile on Amazon.com was created using that same credit card number. If you're keeping score, that's $1350 in charges on the account! Are you kidding me? Around Christmas time, someone is stealing money from us? I guess this would be the time to do it, those scumbag f**ks!
Anyway, we called the bank immediately to let them know that those charges were not ours, and they closed down the card immediately, but what an ordeal to file a claim with Bank of America! First of all, is it me or are those automated bank tellers annoying as hell? Secondly, when you finally get to someone real, do they even hire anyone who's not Indian anymore? What a nightmare! So, now we have to wait between ten to twenty days for that money to be put back into the account, and we're without a debit card for almost two weeks! Just what we needed around the holidays!
I needed to find these douchebags who did this to us, so I took it upon myself to call Hugo Boss to let them know that our credit card had been compromised. The snooty lady on the other end asked for the billing name and address, which I felt was irrelevant at the time, but I guess she needed it. So, when she finally came back, she said that the billing address did not match the shipping address, so I asked where it was being shipped and to whom? She said that by law, she can't give that information out. Okay, well, by law, our credit card shouldn't be compromised either, but that motherf**ker has all of our information including our address and she couldn't tell us where it was being shipped to? This was getting aggravating! Next, I called Piperlime, and went through the same motions, but the girl on that end showed us some sympathy, by at least, telling us that the shipment was going to Massachusetts! Probably to a bunch of dumb Red Sox fans! That shipment was stopped! Finally, we called the dating service and they were about as useless as the Hugo Boss lady, but they did say that the charges had already been reversed!
My only thought was that the card and information was hacked from an online store that we might've done our Christmas shopping at, though friends say that hackers sometimes get into the credit card readers at restaurants, like the one we ate at the night before this all happened. It could be anything and it could've happened at anytime, but why did it have to happen around Christmas? Luckily, we're getting everything back, and the thieves will be getting nothing shipped to them for Christmas except a knock on the door from the police because we filed a report with our police department, which subpoenas the stores in question to get the thieves information. Lesson learned, and I these a**holes get theirs for Christmas! Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!