About noon yesterday I got an automated call from my bank’s Fraud Protection Services. The recorded voice, which I half-ignored, warbled on about ‘unusual activity’ on my account.

Normally this might be cause for alarm, but since I’ve been out gallivanting around the country on my motorcycle for the past few weeks, it really wasn’t much of a surprise. My card usually gets shut down at least once on these trips. Here’s why.

When a card gets stolen, often times the scumbag that stole the card will go to a gas station and buy something cheap, like cigarettes or a Coke. This way they can check if the card is still active before buying really expensive stuff with it, and possibly being caught for using a closed/stolen credit card.

Gas stops on a motorcycle also fit this pattern, and are usually flagged as suspicious by the bank. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass to have the ATM card shut down on the way to Alaska, but usually with a phone call it can be resolved without too much hassle. And having your bank account drained by some thieving piece of shit is definitely a bigger pain in the ass. All in all, I’d rather have the Fraud People vigilant and be inconvenienced once in a while than have all my money stolen.

So, when I got the automated call from the bank today, I figured the same thing had happened. But when the automatic voice read off the first suspect charge, I was shocked.

‘Suspect charge one. Six hundred eighty nine dollars at Juicy Couture, Boston, MA. If this is a valid charge, press one. If not, or if you aren’t sure, press two.‘

Let me think… Was I in Boston at all today, spend almost seven hundred bucks at Juicy and forget all about it? No. I’m in Tennessee.

The fraudulent charges totaled well over two thousand dollars at such places at Banana Republic, The Limited and of course good ol’ Juicy. Fortunately, my bank understands me and my spending patterns well enough to know that my idea of Juicy Couture is clothes that come from Target, so immediately the alarms went off at the fraud center. Turns out somehow, somebody created a fraudulent credit card with my info on it, I have no idea how that can even be done. But it can. I know this because I still have the ATM card in question with me right now.

Then, this asshole took this fraud card to swanky clothing stores in Boston and swiped it to buy their tacky merchandise. That takes some serious balls. And, today, a day after my card was shut down, someone apparently tried to swipe the bogus card again, this time in a Publix grocery store in Miami.

Bizarre.

I really hope the bank uses security tapes or something and finds out who these assholes are, then send a few legbreakers over to get their money back. Still, it’s an uneasy feeling (and a huge pain in the ass) to realize how easy it is to have your card number stolen, and your money spent on crappy clothes that end up on someone else’s back. Not to mention suddenly bouncing checks because you don’t have all of your own money in the bank, or have an ATM card to access that missing money while on the road. The worst part of all is I seem to have joined an ever growing club of people this kind of thing has happened to, because everyone I told my shocking tale to had an equally shocking (or even worse) tale of their own.

I am all for the death penalty for these assholes that do this kind of shit.

Author: frenchy