Crash - I am sorry about your CC dilemma. I hope it will all get straightened out. Glad you were able to repair your hard drive.
Have a great week.
Karen
YIKES! Crash, I hope you get your money back. I'll definitely pass this on to DH - he's recently asked me to use this card more and the CC less.
.
I am so sorry to hear that! We usually keep a good size balance in ours .... we may rethink that!!! I never check our balance online.... I'll have to find out if dh does.....
I hope they restore your money soon!
Oh Tom I'm so sorry to hear this! You know, I used to pop into the bank every 4-6 months and ask for a new debit card to prevent this sort of thing. But since then, I've gotten lack about it. They way I figured it, places like Target, Home Depot and
Best Buy store your credit/debit card number in their systems which is why you can just bring in that same card--without a receipt--and still get a refund, because the system remembers your card number and can link the item's UPC and your card to the specific transaction. Handy for returns. But also handy if the transaction database is penetrated.
Remember, if your card is Visa or MC based, then your bank should be honoring their zero liability policy established by Visa/MC. Sounds like they are going to but they're going to take time to do it.
On a happy note, congrats on the hard drive recovery. I hooked up an external hdd (
Western Digital MyBook) to the network so we can offload everything (photos, files etc) so that the next time one of the computers needs to go in for servicing or dies, all I need to do is re-install the software rather than trying to backup tons of files and such. I had a catastrophic drive failure years ago. Used
GetDataBack Data Recovery Software and and it recovered everything from the hard drive...including file fragments from stuff that was deleted but not secure wiped!
Well worth the money ($75 at the time) and way cheaper than hard drive recovery companies ($120 per Mb restored)!!
The western Digital MY BOOK is the piece of junk I HAD that failed on me. After the fact a friend tells me this particular manufacturer and
the line of "MY BOOK" external hard drives is uspectible to power circuit failures. You may or may not have noticed that many retailors do NOT carry these anymore. Or rather - I seem to have noticed it. Be wary of the thing failing on you. If it does then get a replacement external drive shell and transplant the drive.
Cracking the case is easy (if you know how). When looking at it you will see there are NO SCREWS or fasteners exposed! If you pry off the edges it seems to snap apart but - when you try to snap it apart it DOESN'T!
It actually has ONE CORNER with a PIVOT.... so you unsnap the edges and ROTATE IT. There are two internal snap clips about 1" long... I got impatient and just broke one off flush since I was going to throw the case away. You may not want to though. ???
Any Qs on the drive - let me know. And thanks for the sympathy on the draft account inconveniences.
Sorry to hear all your problems Tom.
I hope it gets staightened out soon.
so devious!!!
..sorry cpt. c, that's terrible....i am glad you caught it before real
damage.
any ideas how it happened? [they got the old account?]
soory cpt. crash...i hope this setback..doesn't stop you from being
happy!,
..a lil'reminder, just because someone did something
wrong to you / , meant you deserved it. thanks for being you!
Lil' G.... nothing like this would trul;y make me unhappy. It's only MONEY after all. As you can imagine it's just a forewarning of potentially bigger risks - and I look on this as a bit of an annoyance and nothing more. Now if they HAD taken my funds (irretrivably) and it was a far LARGER sum ... then I might be singing another song!
Sorry about the card, but glad you repaired your external hard drive!
:
So - I'd like to offer a "blanket reply" to most everyone who posted comments above...
Thanks - and I do expect full recovery. I shared this little experience in the hopes that someone else might heighten thier vigialnce and thus save a dollar. My understanding is debit cards are handled almost well as credit cards in theft instances like this. Although the TERMS of protection are technically not as good as I vaguely understand it. I have so far embraced the use of debit cards since I try to not use credit for anything (except mortgages)... its' just a puritan/confucian philosophy/streak I seem to have.
Besides... I'm such a cheap tight-wad that I never really spend much money. Thus I have little to worry about ... right? <chuckles>
Seriously, so I've had lots of replies from friends on and off the DIS on this developement. Soome folks speak of how the account data became compromised and many speak of well known techniques for thieves to obtain the data. Rather than recant EVERYTHING here... I'll just say in my case I have no idea how they got the data - only that is conspicuious (misspelled) that they used an old account number that I discontinued use on for about 6 months. My bank FAILED to cancel the account when they reissued a new card to me - as the old card had worn out (physically).
So - our leading suspician is they must have obtained the data from my use of the card more than 6 months ago! And some of us have heard of how Mervyns/TJ Maxx had thier transaction histories STOLEN TWICE recently. I assume this breech in security is not the only instance - rather it is a large theft of data that made the news. It stands to reason the thieves don't really want to attck us INDIVIDUALLY for account data. Bigger fish to fry are to go after a big retailor and get 100, of 1000s of account numbers in one hit!
Of course, we still hear of people who had thier personal identites cloned and recreated in a different address... where new credit cards were applied for and goods purchased and sent to. By the time you discover someone has copied your identity - they have piled up huge unsecured debt in your name and they dissappear! Leaving you with the potential liability risk and credit score damage. THAT is why we should shred our account data anytime we throw out something ... or if we have our personal info printable anywhere. Plus ... there are other ways for someone to use your identity data for nefarious advantage.
Aside from that - I will share another instance of credit theft. I used to have an AMEX card... I liked the way it looked and I liked the fact it was essentially a debit (and not credit) card. Well... when reviewing the account history I noticed a bunch of little telephone charges. Well... that was pretty unusual since I had a cell phone. And I must confess I used to just pay the bill and review it quarterly more or less. SO when reviewing it I saw these little transactions which added up to maybe $30-40. Well... I got to thinking and looked at every statement going backwards and I discovered I had about $700 in telephone charges that I had been nickle and dimed for in the past few months! Now that was annoying! Fortunately AMEX was great and they reversed ALL of it over several months... even though I know the fair credit laws only protect me for maybe 30 (60?) days.
The moral... you really should review your bank and charge histories. Especially in this day and age. We should NEVER be too busy to check this. Us "Rich Americans" or natives of 1st world countires are looked on as succulent targets by thieves everywhere. And if you pause to consider - these thieves are taking AFTER TAX money from us! I think mostof us cannot recover the losses (typically) and if you lose $1000... then you may have already paid $600-1000 in state and federal taxes to have that $1000 to lose. How much has to be lost before one notices? I think we all don't want to find out!
Somberly - I mean well in sharing my close encounter with a dishonest host. I would not want any of my nice neighbors to become victims if I could have warned them in time to avoid the loss.
OK..... I gotta go. The bad trabnsactions have now all posted - and I have some reporting to do... and I have to take mykids to dinner. They just got out of the pool here at the hotel. Tomorrow we head home but have the Queen L concert at the Bowl. It's a pot luck picnic and I have guests to meet and details to coordinate.
Maybe after dinner I'll duck in to lurk - just in case I can sprint for the 67,000the posting! <chuckles> ... but that is extremely unlikely. And for the record...
I think its' time a WENCH got it!
Cheers!
