Last week Toney told me there was a credit card breach at several Wendy’s locations around the country, including the one I visit regularly. I let this sink in for minute, blinked a few times, and said, “Did you say something about Wendy’s?”
I didn’t know anything about this, of course. I’m fairly insulated from the real world. But it’s been in the news, I guess, and the list of specific stores was recently released. And the one within waddling distance of our front door was on that list. Fantastic.
Not that I gave it too much thought, mind you. I might be misguided, but that kind of stuff doesn’t concern me a great deal. I mean, it’s not like there are millions of dollars sitting in my account at any given time. Even if they took it all, it wouldn’t be much. If they targeted my shit, there would be some mighty disappointed red-lipped tracksuit-wearing assholes in Omsk, or wherever. Believe you me.
But on Thursday I stopped by the grocery store to purchase a six-pack of an over-hopped domestic craft beer, and my bank card was denied. What the? The balance sometimes gets down pretty low (it’s my personal account, not the main household account…), but not THAT low.
“Weird,” I told the cashier. Some people would be embarrassed and feel compelled to reassure the guy there’s plenty of money in that account, and it’s clearly some kind of mistake, etc. Me? I couldn’t give two shits what some 20 year old zit plantation thinks about me. Yes, it’s become much easier to live this life since my soul atrophied and turned coal-black, it really has. I just switched to a credit card, and was on my way.
But when I got to my car I called Toney, and she checked my account. “What’s this Lee’s Discount Liquor, for $37.84?” she asked. Huh? Never heard of the place. I asked her what city it’s in, and could hear computer keys clicking in the background. “Las Vegas,” she finally said.
Dammit! Thanks, Wendy’s. A million #1s with cheese, and now this?
After we hung up, I noticed I had three new voicemail messages. As far as I knew, my phone didn’t even ring. I played them on speaker while I drove, and all were from the credit union. “Call us immediately, there’s some shit going down!” the person said. You know, give or take.
When I got home, I called. I talked to a very nice woman named Angie. She was a normal human being, which is quite rare. We went through a list of recent charges, and all were legit except two: Lee’s Liquor, and another one for eight bucks, also in Vegas. “We’re seeing a lot of fraudulent activity there today,” she told me.
Both those charges were pending, Angie said, but there had reportedly been several other attempts that were denied. Including a couple more at Lee’s. The system realized what was going on, somehow, and locked my account down.
She said I needed to call another number to order a new debit card, and in the meantime, nothing else would be approved. Impressed by her humanness, I thanked Angie profusely. She acted like she cared a bit, and communicated with me in a non-irritating manner. That’s all it takes to stand out from the pack nowadays.
But all that was about to change…
I called the number she gave me, which was apparently the main customer service line. And I was thrust into a hall of mirrors. Press 1 for English, enter or say the last four digits of your social security number, enter or say your date of birth, etc. etc. Several times I did what they asked, and was sent back to where I started. It was maddening, and it made me miss Angie even more.
I finally made it through the maze, and settled into a “your call is very important to us” holding pattern. And instead of music there was a guy with a lisp on there bringing me up to date on blimp trivia. WTF?? Then he started talking about the person who invented a device that measures the human foot.
And the call dropped. I was listening to a bizarre litany of factoids, and suddenly nothing. So, I had to go back into the hall of mirrors, and start all over again. A few of the bad words were spoken, my friends.
Eventually some dude who was almost certainly stoned came on the line, and it didn’t go well. There was a delay, like when they’re talking to somebody in Iraq on cable news. I’d say something, and it took the guy a couple of beats before he began to reply. It made me crazy. I could also hear wind blowing. Was he outside?? What in the everlasting hell?
Yeah, he didn’t care. He told me nothing had been charged to my account yet, that the two charges were still pending. And that was supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy? “You’re probably cool,” he said. Cool? Was I talking to one of the guys from Workaholics?
They’d send me a new card, ol’ Bongwater mumbled. “How soon will I have it?” I asked. “About ten days,” he said. “That doesn’t work for me,” I said. “Well, that’s how long it takes,” he replied, without offering any additional suggestions or even a hint of apology. This guy was the anti-Angie. And was he on a roof or something? WTS??
I checked my account yesterday, and both charges were still pending. But today they made it all the way through, and the money is now gone from my account. One charge at Lee’s Discount Liquor, and another at a 7-11 store, both in Las Vegas. Grrr… It’s only $46 total, but it still infuriates me.
The money is one thing, but I also don’t have access to my bank account until the new card arrives. “Just stop by a branch,” Pineapple Express suggested, with an air of duh! in his voice. “I’m in Pennsylvania,” I told him. “Oh,” he replied, helpfully, from Burbank.
So, anyway… On Monday I’m going to have to call back and report fraudulent charges, and see what they can do about it. It’s a giant festering boil on the ass of my mental health. Or something.
Have you ever had something like this happen to you? I know it’s small potatoes compared to the giant nightmares people were forced to endure years ago. They’ve improved things greatly on that front, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Not really. I don’t like to burn calories to get back to where I was three days ago. Ya know?
In any case, please share your stories in the comments if you got ’em.
And I’ll be back soon.
Have a great day!
Support us by doing your shopping at Amazon! In Canada? Here’s your link. Thank you guys!
My husband’s card was breached last week, too. The credit union called five times in an hour, each voice mail sounding more and more worried. When my husband called back (after we left church), the relief from the CU employee made my husband laugh.
They went through all charges from the previous week; two were fraudulent. One was for a pack of golf balls in Alabama ($1.20). I don’t recall the other charge. Both were immediately declined, and the CU sent a new card to the local branch for him to pick up within three days.
Ring, Rang, Rung. Sorry but verb conjugation is my specialty. Spelling on the other hand, spellcheck can’t figure it out what I want. “Look it up in the dictionary”!! How can I look it up if I can’t spell it!!
Our cards have been hacked so many times that we have a card for internet purchases only. The latest was for $500 and the merchant was Jennifer Lopez.(?) I lose my debit card at least 4-5 times a year. The bank started charging me 5 bucks to replace it.
Had my Amex charged for internet and phone services in Bolivia or some such South American country.
I’ve never been to South America, who knew they even had Internet there.
Amex customer service was very poor about getting this change removedto say the least.
Twice I’ve had the bank call me about suspicious charges to my card, and both times they were bogus charges. I don’t know how their programs can detect which are fraudulent and which are legit – we go on vacation regularly and don’t tell the bank, but somehow they determine that those charges are OK. And yeah, it sucks every time I have to get a new card.
how the hell can I get drunk if they keep declining your card.
randall in vegas
Someone got my credit card number and flew first class to Rio and stayed in a Hyatt with room service for a couple of weeks. I kept calling the credit card company and they kept telling me I was no longer responsible for the account. They finally cancelled my login. The only other place I had used the card was a nursery in Ohio. Didn’t have to pay that bill either, FREE PLANTS!!!
My Schwab account has been hacked 3 times. This time around I’m using checks instead of the debit card but I know sooner or later SOMEONE in Mexico is going to find out there is money in the account and begin to buy stuff at the local WalMart. Like before. Humph!
When I lived in Atlanta I had some checks stolen and I cancelled them but not the account. A month later someone went black Friday shopping on my dime. My credit union, delta employees, reimbursed me right away. It was fairly painless until I had to fight with all the businesses that got stiffed that were trying to take me to collections. Kay bee toys. Payless. Etc.
Thankfully no one has ever stolen my debit card number, but one or more of my credit card numbers is stolen every year. One of the more recent thefts occurred when I visited NYC for the day two years ago. I only used my credit card once during the trip when I purchased a beverage at a Starbucks in Hoboken before I headed home to PA. The cashier must have run my credit card through a device to steal my numbers when I wasn’t looking, because my bank contacted within a few hours to notify me of fraudulent charges. My card did not have a chip at the time, so there was no other way the numbers could have been stolen except via that punk-ass hipster cashier.
Luckily, few stores still require a person to hand their card to the cashier to swipe, but the ones that do always make me bristle a bit as I recall that experience at Starbucks.
My discover card was cloned at a best inn suites while I was on a business trip. Called cancelled it, a new card was overnighted. My discover card been used at a coke machine at universal studios, and for drinks at margarettaville. I felt cheated, since I was in Rogers, AR.
Don’t use a debit card for anything, if you’re using plastic use credit cards only. Debit cards take the bogus charges out of your account before you can stop them, with a credit card you have weeks to sort it out. Plus there are 5% cashback at restaurants credit cards, and if I ate that many Wendys #1’s the cashback would add up fast.
I was in Indiana last week. 3 Floyds beer, good grief that’s some good pale ales, and a good brewpub. No distribution in PA yet sadly.
I was going to ask the same. Why use a debit card at all? At least a credit card gives you a buffer between them and your bank account, and a cash back card gives you at least a little something back.
Some mallet head in the UK tried charging a $1500 laptop computer on my Amazon account. They reacted faster than a hobo at a buffet, nixed the sale and contacted me at least 10 times in the next two hours to assure me that my account was secure…I was satisfied. Now I get all my credit cards through one of the local banks, this way I can harangue a real person. My experiences with the voice mail mobius strip have been recently confined to my internet/TV/telephone company. After correctly navigating the options (“listen closely because of menu has changed”), they’ll put you on hold for 30-45 minutes while Barry Manilow hits are played with kazoo-like audio quality (“zzzzz…your call is important to us, please stay on the line until the next agent is available”). You eventually are connected (“your call may be recorded for quality purposes”) and begin talking to Butch in Sri Lanka. He can’t help so he transfers your call to a sweat shop answering service in Puerto Rico where it all starts over. Cash seems to beat poorly secured credit cards. At least you’ll know who to get mad at when it is stolen from you.
My Discover card got compromised last summer. Some tool used it to buy a domain name (!) – jidfoweq.com or some shit. Once I had spent an afternoon on the phone with them, the Discover people did the right thing: refunded the money, canceled the account and sent me a new card.
I never use a debit card for purchases, except at Costco. Cash is the preferred medium for small transactions – lunches, smokes etc. I use a credit card – not debit – for groceries and gas.
Was a part of that skimming scam many years ago, about $6000 taken from my account (not that I had that in there but they did fake deposits). Bank covered it, I think it was a new thing at the time probably about 15 years ago.
Last week had a call from ‘CRA’ (IRA in the US) saying that I had committed fraud. I am a CPA… not happening… They had such strong Indian accents that I could not understand them and names like Paul Anderson, Gerard Wilson. They said they were from Ottawa, we have enough buffoons there, lol they told me to be quiet or I would be deported…..
I think it might have been a linked-in hack, not sure.
Three times now –
The first time it was someone purchasing X-Box Live or whatever it is called. The bank lady acted as if I was the thief. I told her I don’t even play video games and that she and the bank president were welcome to come my house and look. She didn’t find that funny.
The second time was someone spending 400 hundred dollars in a Dollar Store in Ohio. I still don’t know how someone could spend that much in a Dollar Store.
The third time was a drug store in L.A.
Just yesterday, Barney’s (of NYC) online called me to verify that I really intended to order 4 gift cards totalling $2500. I didn’t and so they cancelled the order without sending anything. I still don’t know how they got my phone number. Anyway, after hanging up with them and promptly calling my bank (initials WF :-), the account was immediately locked and the nice woman on the line called me a valuable customer and offered to overnight FedEx a new card to me free of charge. I know what bank will continue to receive our business!
On a related note, the skimmer thing is in full swing here in the Keys. It’s like the idiots in Miami just recently realized what a prime target they had south of the mainland. If you’re visiting down here this summer it would be a great time to take up paying for your gas with cash, or at the least going inside to pay.
“Zit plantation” – I’ll have to remember that one.
3 or 4 times now and it’s always the credit card company that catches it and refuses the charge. They tell you 10 days for a new card but I’ve had to get new ones in every instance and I think 5 days was the most it took (calendar days too – not business days). I think one of them arrived on a Saturday too.
Same here. American Express told me the criminals sort of “ping” the card with little silly charges, then if they see that the charges were successful after a time, they’ll go for the 4 or 5 figure bonanza.
Ê esaIf it’s any consolation, I had the A/C unit ripped out of my man cave the other night. It appeared as of nothing else was stolen. They didn’t touch anything else in there, and there was A LOT to touch. Let me just say that…