So, I get home from shopping, get everything put away and the phone rings.
Furriner. Can hardly understand her. Really heavy accent. The caller ID shows no phone number, only private. I rarely answer private phone calls but I’m glad I answered this one. She asks for me by name. I ask why what it’s about. About an internet purchase for over five hundred dollars for a calling card.
Huh?
This alarms me, just a little bit. I ask who she was, where she’s calling from. She gave me a website name and I’d never heard of it. I told her that no, no one here ordered a phone calling card on the internet. We both have cell phones with unlimited long distance, there’s no reason to need a phone card. Especially one for over five hundred dollars. She won’t tell me what credit card was used. She asked me to tell her the number. I’m sorry, but I’m not giving out that information to someone that I didn’t call first. When she’s satisfied with my non-responses, we end the call.
And I immediately came back to the office and started calling my credit card companies. The first one I called is the one where they’ve had to cancel accounts and open up a new one twice. No sign of odd activity. The next one is the Disney card. Bingo! There’s a charge for $530.00 made this morning from a website I’ve never heard of. And there was also a charge to the Yahoo! wallet. So, I’m transferred to the fraud section, we get the card cancelled and I’m advised not to try to use it. Okee dokee. When I got off the phone I called Brian and told him not to use it.
Of course, I have to do a little investigating when I’m done and the website page only says “if you have a charge on your credit card statement from this website, call this number or send us an email for more information”. It’s some sort of credit card clearing house. I move on to Yahoo! wallet. I check in. Odd thing is the credit card number used there is one that’s been dead for a while. It’s old. Oh, well, I cancel my Yahoo! wallet altogether.
As for the actual charges, they were awaiting authorization, the company had not paid them yet. Good deal. No loss for anyone. I bet someone’s going to get an unpleasant surprise when they realize they card that they thought was free money, isn’t.
