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11 November, 2009

Robbed by a New Yorker

Yesterday morning I awoke, stared bleary-eyed at my phone and checked my emails. Apparently, an apple wakes you up more than a cup of coffee in the morning. Yesterday morning an email telling me that my bank account was below the watch amount I had set up on it woke me up faster than apple flavoured coffee with a shot of red-bull. I rushed downstairs to check my account. Did I really have less than $50 in my account? Had I spent that much already this month?
My account loaded up and it turns out I DID have less than $50 in my account. Less than $20 in fact. Less than $0. I actually had $-700 in my account.
"How queer" I thought to myself mildly bemused. "Must be a banking error."

Ok. I didn't actually think that. I thought "Where the **** is my money?". Turns out I must have sleep walked to NY and spent the whole lot. I apparently sleepwalked straight into Gap Kids. Twice. Spending over $200 there. Then I decided that Staples was next. $200 there too. I must have bought a metro card too and enjoyed various other stores around the NY area.

There were two major clues that tipped me off that perhaps it wasn't me sleep walking.

1) I didn't have any of the cool baby clothes and staples products you would think I would have.
2) I had somehow managed to be in Gap Kids at the same time that I withdrew money from an atm in West Virginia.

So you can imagine I am not a happy bunny today.

What made it worse is that I had SPOKE to the bank two days ago reporting a problem with my card. "Hmm I don't see any problems sir" they told me "must just be a faulty card". A faulty card?? Your telling me! So my own bank couldn't tell that it was being used to run up hundreds of dollars in another state even though I was putting the physical card into ATMs in WV?? What a joke. And how were they able to run me into so much debt without triggering any alarm bells at my bank or declining any transaction? Depending on how it goes at the bank tomorrow will determine whether I stay with them or not.

There is one thing the bank was able to do incredibly effectively. Charge me $34 for 7 different overdrawn transactions. Thank you!

2 comments:

Neurotic Atty said...

OK, let me start with this: That. Sucks.

But I have to add that I laughed when you wrote, "How queer," I thought to myself, mildy bemused. "Must be a banking error." OK. I didn't actually think that. I thought, "Where the **** is my money?" That little string of sentences is money, my friend!

But back to the suckage. This is my greatest fear. My bank (5/3) is actually really great about catching these sorts of things. Now, they suck in a lot of other ways, but they're good at picking up odd charges and notifying me immediately. May be time for you to switch banks.

Evil Twin's Wife said...

Ouch! I hope they can rectify the situation quickly.