Life has been too entertaining for words lately. Plenty to blog about....nowhere near enough time!!
So I slept late, and I went to my class on Tuesday. Yeah, over a week ago...bear with me. During the lunch break the sun was actually shining, so I decided to go sit out in the parking lot near my car. I spent a minute or two debating if I should bring my purse with me or leave it in the meeting room. I took it with me. I sat outside for awhile, went to the afternoon class session, and when class ended at 4:15, I bolted from the room (it was hot and my mild eyestrain was acting up and I had a headache) and went to the car to make a quick trip to the next door walmart to buy some eyedrops before I attempted to drive home.
Two minutes later, in the walmart parking lot, I'm searching the car for my purse. No purse. 90 seconds later, I'm back at the classroom, looking frantically under the table. No purse. I check the parking lot where my car was.....no purse. So I decide the person sitting next to me at the class, who works on my floor, saw that I had left it and brought with her. I find my way home without buying eyedrops.
Next day, my coworker comes in and I ask her if she happens to have seen my purse the day before. She says no. Guess she doesn't have it then. I start calling places. The place we had the class doesn't have it. The restaurant next door. nope. the pet store next to the restaurant. nope. The police department. Nope.
After work, I drive out of my way back to the town where the class was. I park in the same parking spot and walk the route between there and walmart on foot, checking curbs and ditches. I check with the walmart service desk. Nope. I buy a new wallet at Walmart since I'm there.
I conclude that the purse is almost certainly completely lost and drive home. I stop at Verizon Wireless to ask them if there's a number I can call to get my $50 phone rebate card resissued because it's lost.
It's a funny thing about the phone rebate card. They sent it to me last winter, when I had to replace my cell phone when IT got lost. (It turned up in the spring, in the neighbors yard, in a few pieces, having gone through the snowblower blades.) I kept it on the HIGHSHELF, waiting to be part of a Nintendo Wii purchase. As a Easter/Mom's Day present, we got a nintendo Wii, so I decided I would use the rebate card towards the Wiifit, which I really want. I took the rebate card down from the HIGHSHELF so I could put it in my purse. Then, shortly after a cleaning binge in which lots of miscellaneous paper found its way to the recycle bin, I couldn't find the rebate card. A few days later, I found the rebate card. I put it in my purse so I wouldn't lose it again.
Two days later, the whole purse was lost. I think the rebate card had a vanishing charm on it that just got stronger and stronger.
It's been nine days now. Nobody has tried to use anything that was in the purse. Nobody has contacted me in regards to it. It has vanished into the great unknown. I'm now in the process of getting everything that was in the purse reissued. Probably won't happen with the chuck e cheese gift cards. I have a paper copy of a license with no picture on it, because they have to send it to me in the mail. Don't ask my what the logic is on that one. And I can only go to stores where they take checks, because I still have those. I haven't written this many checks in years. It's almost fun to write checks again.
7 months ago
1 comment:
From one who's been there and done that, CLOSE EVERYTHING - as in EVERY account - even library cards, ASAP!! Do it even if they haven't used anything...yet.
My wallet was stolen a few years ago. They left my plastic alone (except for trying to open a cell phone account on my credit) but about 3 months after my wallet was stolen, they wrote over $5,000 worth of checks over the coarse of 4 days - a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Why? Because they could. They knew very well what they were doing. Thursday's checks were good as gold. My credit is very good, my account standing was perfect, and they also had my driver's license number - which incidentally was written as a form of ID on every single one of the forged checks. And then they played the bank float for the other few days. By the time word trickled down that these were all stolen checks being written on a closed account, it was Monday morning and they were done with their fun.
We got copies of all the forged checks from the bank and took them to the police (who did nothing about it.) They did say, though, that it appeared that there were at least 6 different people all writing checks (probably a drug ring) - and every one of them were most likely men, even though all but two of them were signed with my name (remember, they had my driver's license ID) rather than my husband's even though it was a joint account. I did eventually get the police to write a letter for me stating that my driver's license had been used for criminal activity so I could (after clawing my way through that system, too) eventually get a new number. That was the biggest pain of all, I tell you!
Because we had followed our instinct and closed everything right after my wallet was stolen, we weren't liable for anything monitarily. Nor did we have to do any sorting out to determine which stuff was legitimately ours and what was fraud. If, however, we had left the accounts open and still continued to use them, I do believe we would have been liable for some of the fraudulant stuff. Most banks and credit card companies have provisions in their agreements that you are responsible for the first $50-$500 PER ACCOUNT of fraud on any open account. Of course, they don't tell you that except in their big legal agreements that no one reads. But it's there and you signed it when you opened your account and they'll hold you to it. But, if they do end up writing your stuff against a closed account like they did mine, then you are free and clear and the banks can't hold you liable for anything.
Also keep an eye on your credit reports. In fact, call every one of the major reporting agencies and put a freeze on your credit. It means you can't apply for any new credit cards or loans without prior authorization for awhile, but it also means that no one else can either.
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