Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Joining the Target Christmas party

Well, as I am sure that you all know, some 40 million credit card numbers were misplaced by the renowned Target (pronounced Tar - zhay) Company.

On this glorious Christmas Eve, someone in Chicago, of all places, is using my wife's debit card at Target believe it or not.  My bank, not BoA, Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bancorp, HSBC, or Capital One, (notice I listed the 7 biggest banks in America) a place in which I have never set foot inside a branch in my life, called and asked....we have seen charges in the town where you live today, but suddenly this charge shows up in Illinois.  Is one of your kids or your wife there?

No.

ok, well we are going to put a hold on your account, do you need to do any more shopping today?

Yes.

Will you be making any online purchase or any purchases outside of your city of residence.

No.

Ok, we will approve all charges where you live, but deny all else and refund the charge that is already made.

thank you.

Have a Merry Christmas Mr. alan

You too.

I love my bank!!!  Now I just hope that the SOB that is using my wife's card to fund their Christmas tries it one more time.  I get the feeling that Target is not happy about it and will probably press charges.  At least I hope they do.

And Merry Christmas to all of you my friends.  I hope each of you gets all of the ammo and other supplies that Santa was asked for.

4 comments:

Schteveo said...

alan,
here's hoping Santa delivers this person's ass to you, in a gift wrapped SLING!!

Recently we applied for a credit card from our credit union. I filled out the minimal form, and sent it in through my online acct access. They approved the acct, as I figured.

BUT, they called my wife to see if it was OK for me to do it!

She's the one with the paycheck and she's the principal on the acct after all. And we BOTH thanked them, for making the call. That's WHY we like the credit unions, not banks.

Banks are all nationally owned and run, and the home office is invariably in some other state. And if the home office isn't, the complaint compartment damned sure is! Worse still, in situations like this, YOUR State's AG is just 1/50th of their total problem. So how much weight does he carry.

Back in the good old days, when banks were state entities, if you had a problem, your State's AG was 100% of THEIR problem and going to jail was so much closer, they HAD to listen totally.

It was a grand difference.

Mr Hankey said...

I don't shop at Tar Gay

Spider said...

Neither do i. I do most of my shopping online, and only with places that accept PayPal. Anything that goes wrong, is on them, but i've never had a problem. When shopping in person, a rarity, i use cash.

My daughter had her SS# stolen back in '92, by some ghetto Ho who worked at her bank at the time. The ho them went down to Mimms, Fla. and started getting credit cards, store loans, and even got a new car using my daughters ID. (obviously they're very trusting in FloriDUH)

I contacted a buddy who was with the Secret Service in Jacksonville at the time. After 6 months, they finally caught up with her. It turns out she was part of an ID-theft ring of 6 other ghetto ho's. She was busted and convicted for running up over $400K in bad paper. She only did about a year, then from what i was told, then went right back into her "business"

My point is this. Even though my daughter was, and still is, a high level executive with an international investing firm, her credit report (still) shows (all) of the bad loans etc. the ho did. The credit reporting agencies (refuse) to remove them, in spite of official letters from the US Secret Service and the federal court in FL. Beware.

While i'm at it, let me send my sincere wishes to all of our little family here, for a very happy, safe, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

Schteveo said...

In '92 very few people, unless they were the victims, knew about ID Theft.

My brother and his wife worked for Nationwide Mort. for a while in the late 90's, before they were married. One of the 'ladies' who worked there, and who became my sister-in-laws room mate. They found out, just before Christmas, that someone in their office was being investigated for ID Theft.

The 'room mate' was using all the info she was collecting, to get loans or credit cards. When the cops went through her stuff, they found that she was about to go after my sister-in-laws credit. After she was arrested they found out that her family was NOT going to throw her bail AGAIN, for doing the same thing...AGAIN!

She'd been arrested for doing it three other times, and the crazy part was, the financial outfits she'd done it from, were NOT reporting it to the next prospective victims, when she applied for new jobs! And at the times the laws were pretty slack for doing it.

She got less than 3 years. that was the max, because stealing the info was her only crime then. It was left up to the stores / banks / victims to work it out. It's all tougher now IF caught, but many don't get caught.

Here's what I don't get.

Banks are interstate and damned near deregulated, which increased these occurrences. Insurance companies aren't allowed to be interstate because they MIGHT help us, or so it seems.