Can I help you? No, we don't sell pesto sausage, but we do have little weenies.

Jan 22, 2008

I am officially impressed

and a little creeped out.

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call.

"Hello," says I.

"Hello, this is Jane from the fraud department at blah, blah blah credit card company"
(OH SH*T)
"We noticed some unusual activity on your account; in the last 15 minutes there have been 10 charges for $2.00 each to Yahoo Voice, and we are following up," said the rep.
(Whew?)
"Oh, that's not me," says I.
(Lots of blah, blah, blah and thank yous on my part, and stop using the card, we'll send you a new one and so forth.)

Nice work on their part, but what I wonder what activities they are monitoring that will set off other alarms.

(As an aside, I ordered something from Geeks.com back in December, and I later read that they had a security breach. I presume that's how the number escaped into the wild. I'm glad the perp used the card in a way that set the fraud department into motion immediately.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorghum: Credit card companies have some way of flagging activity that is out of the norm. It's a good thing. I had my identity stolen in 2001 and what a bear it was getting that straightened out. My sister-in-law had her identity stolen a few years later, but by then the credit card companies were flagging odd transactions and she got the problem straightened out in short order. Apparently people who steal identities/credit car numbers tend to use the information for small transactions online or use the credit card at gas stations at first. The credit card companies know this and tag accounts where this activity suddenly appears. Hope that helps.

dguzman said...

SC: Hello?
THE NSA: Hello, Sorghum. This is No One at the No-Such-Agency, and we can neither confirm nor deny that this phone call is taking place. We've noticed that you've called President Bush a fuckwit several times in the last few minutes.
SC: What? Who is this, really?
THE NSA: You will be detained. Say goodbye.

*pounding on door begins* "OPEN UP! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"

Sorghum Crow said...

Oh I feel better now....

Anonymous said...

Sorghum: Yeah, it is scary getting that call because you wonder what kind of information they are collecting. That's why I try to use cash.