Credit Card Theft

Either Eric purchased some expensive escort services or we were victims of credit card theft. The first question people ask is how we found out.  For whatever reason, probably out of laziness, we have always kept our Wells Fargo account everywhere we've moved, even when there isn't a Wells Fargo branch. It's not the easiest thing to bank by mail, but we've never really had a problem with it until now.

One of the benefits of Wells Fargo is that they call you immediately once they notice suspicious activity on your account.  In these cases, they have you verify recent charges to your account.  In most cases, it's an instance where Eric and I are in different states both charging the same account (so for those of you looking to hijack someone's credit card, do it in the same state the person lives).

Anyway, back to the story.  On this particular day, I stopped at Panera to get food and headed to get the children from school so I could take Mallory to dance. I was on the phone with my boss so I didn't pick up the phone when the 800 number called me.  Less than an hour later, I realized Eric had been calling my phone numerous times.  This is how I found out we were victims of credit card theft.  Eric on the other hand found out a much more embarrassing way. 

Since I was at dance with the kids, Eric stopped to get Wendy's on his way home (in his suit might I add :)). When he went to pay (we always pay with the Credit Card for the points), it kept coming back rejected.  Puzzled, he called Wells Fargo.  They had turned our card off due to the extra suspicious activity on the account. Strike 1.

Next, Eric went to pull out his debit card, and since we never use it, it had expired back during our move so we never got the new cards.  Strike 2.  Of course Eric didn't have any cash, because who carries cash these days? (um we do now).  Strike 3.  We also don't have any other form of payment as we cancelled every other type of card back when we were trying to qualify for our house without Eric's income. Strike 4.  I think at this point the people at Wendy's felt really bad, and probably really awkward, so they gave Eric his food for free. I can only imagine what was going through Eric's head at the time.

Anyway, we had a trip planned for the next day, but it required a credit card. Hmm, the new cards would take a week to get there, but no worries, you can just go get a temporary one from the Wells Fargo branch.  Oh that's right, we don't live anywhere near a Wells Fargo.  Ok, we'll just use a check.  Oh wait, I just wrote the last check a few days ago.  Just before cancelling our trip, I remembered that USAA had a sent a card a while back that I was pre-approved for and all I had to do was activate.  I kept it thinking I could give it to Mallory to play with....all I can say is that saved the day, and the weekend.  Luckily, we had a few checks lying around uncashed because we bank by mail and I couldn't find a stamp the day before.  We had to open a bank account in town because we had already written "for deposit only".  Needless to say, it all worked out after a lot of hassle. 

This was one of those moments where I wished lived closer to any type of family.  I felt pretty helpless and violated not having access to any of our money, but we learned never to only have one account, especially when you bank by mail.

The great news is, we don't get stuck with the charges, but the bad news is that I have a lot of fraud paperwork to fill out.