by Wanda June Hill » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:53 pm
Well, we got ripped off when Jimmie used his bank card at a smaller/privately owned gas station...when the card was processed, the information from it went to another state where it was "stolen" and then sent to another state where our bank account was then billed for 300.00 the first month and 300.00 the second month and then I realized this is not right! It took over 6 months for them to track it to the last state where it went overseas from there and I guess they still are "looking". However after about 17 weeks, they figured out that it was not Jimmie who used the card in Colorado where it showed the first gasoline purchase of 34.00 which then was used a few days later to get the first 300.00 out. It took almost 47 months to get the cash back into our account though, that long to prove it was not Jimmie who did the 300.00 ones.... He's never even been to colorado! Anyway, they picked 300 figure because I normally paid two 300.00 amts to two accounts so it would look normal for me to pay that amt. I guess???? Anyway, I never pay the same amt on any credit card several times in a row. I randomaly pay various amts to all the bills like that we have and so it won't look "normal" if it happens again. The bank also has a flag on our acct. to alert us should something happen that looks odd again. We never go out of state anymore, so that should never happen again. in that way.
It's terrible how people can get into anything and steal and charge things.
We even had a hospital bill charged to us-and that took several weeks to prove we weren't in that hospital! What became pretty obvious was when it was for the birth of a baby girl- and the "womans" name was Jimmie!
He would have had a hard time with that one! I told the investigator that he wasn't able to give birth-and it took a little time for that to soak in-then the guy "got it" and said, You mean Jimmie is a man?" I said, yeah, I've known him for nearly 48 years-he hasn't had a sex change yet. He laughed-then said, well it's pretty obvious that this can't be you folks-how old are you? I said 68 in a few months and he said, "Well, you don't have a baby girl in the house do you? I said, "I hope to heck I never do!" and he laughed. So that cleared up fast. It was someone using a stolen fake ID and it was Jimmie's SS number that was stolen... So that's been fixed.
I'm so glad we don't have a lot of money or things...good grief! If it's this much trouble for what we do have, what would that be like!
Anyway, I never use anything on line that leads to my bank account or a credit card that is worth more than 500.00 so it won't be a big gain for anyone. I will not pay bills on line either-or order things unless using a card with a low limit amt. It just is too risky these days. When they can buy all the information about you they need for just 9.95 cents! Scary.
wjh
Wanda June Hill
author of "We Remember, Elvis" & "Elvis - Face to Face"