Fraud
These are the shards of my credit card.
I got a call from my mum a few days ago. The bank had sent me a letter (to my parents’ address - my mailing address in the Netherlands) to let me know that I would not be able to use my credit card since they had temporarily blocked it after discovering what they supsected to be fraud. I rang the fraud department of my bank and they listed the recent charges to my card. One after another, I said “Mhmm, yes, correct, yes, mmhmm, NO I DID NOT SPEND OVER €1400 AT AN APPLE STORE AT A MALL IN A RANDOM AMERICAN CITY! OR A SIMILAR AMOUNT AT BED, BATH & BEYOND?!”And so on, and so on. I could have been out of €5000 if my bank weren’t so on the money. The scary part is that I have no idea how whoever was trying to scam me got my credit card details.
The only thing I can think of is that it has something to do with Mobileworld, my mobile network. I used to do topups online, and noticed one day that I had been charged five times £10 (I later noticed that it had happened before as well, another £20). I rung the company, they asked me to send a copy of my credit card statement to verify that I had indeed been charged - the transactions had failed online and were listed as declined, so I never received airtime. I was supposed to receive an email back, which never happened. I’d called again the day before this whole credit card tango, asked what was going on, demanded a confirmation of sorts. The next day, I’d still not heard anything from crappy Mobileworld, but I had heard about this sudden surge of huge of transactions. What a coincidence. I called again, got quite upset with them, and explained that I could also go to the police for fraud. Even without the credit card business, the 70 pounds they owe me and are consistently failing to repay is enough.
Thank Christ my bank employ some savvy people. Thank Christ I have a low limit on my credit card. None of the transactions were successful, because the fraudulent scum were too greedy and went over the limit. Phew. Never a dull moment!
€1400 at Bed, Bath and Beyond? Just how dirty can you be?