I'm A Statistic

I was one of those people who thought it would never happen to me. I was wrong. My identity has been thefted.

I only have one credit card (hate debt) and I pay it online (too lazy to mail a check on time). I signed into the site this morning to check my balance and make my payment, when to my shock I discovered about 8 charges I had not made.

You can hear about it all you want, but till it happens to you, you just don't get it. It's kind of scary, and more than a bit insulting. The charges weren't huge, and they were all to video or music sites online (Blockbuster online, Napster, and the like).

I called and reported it, and my credit card company (Chase) was super cool. They took the charges off my bill and told me I would not be responsible for any of them. (Some places hold you responsible for the first $50 of unauthorized charges, but Chase waives that). They told me they'd send me an affidavit to sign saying those weren't my charges, and they'd investigate it from there. They also canceled my account, and will issue me a new card (with a new number) immediately. Oh, and they told me the three major credit reporting agencies would be notified so they can monitor and correct their records - because of course when the places where the false charges were made don't get paid, they could report them on me.

All in all it was fairly painless, but still ... yipes! That sucked.

I don't know what happened. I make a lot of online purchases, but I've been doing it for years, and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I don't know whether it was some individual at some company I ordered from who took the number from my order, or whether it was just some random computer hacker. Or maybe even from an in-person charge I made somewhere at some point. No way to tell, at least not from my end. I'd like to hope the investigation would turn up something, but I imagine it's relatively doubtful.

In more pleasant news ... the second sweater front is progressing well. That's about all I have to say about that.

It's supposed to rain and thunderstorm here tonight and tomorrow, so I don't know how much gardening I'm going to get done, but if I can, I will. Now that I've started, and actually have a hope of doing something right this time, I'm so psyched ... I can't wait for the times when I can just get out and work in my little garden. I check my new plants several times a day (no new growth to speak of yet - bummer) and I'm already busy planning other things I want to do.

Meanwhile, there's a Midnight Drunken (R) Horseshoe Tournament going on (okay, it's not midnight yet ... we started early) so I'm off to point and laugh.