One way or another, I just may be crying by bedtime tonight....
#1 had to pay a baggage fee today at the airport. I watched her put her debit card away when the transaction was completed.
While I was on the computer this afternoon, I checked email and there was an alert from the bank saying that an account was "overdrawn."I had just transferred some money to cover baggage today in #1's account, but sure enough, it was her checking account.
Someone had purchased $1.40 worth of food at a McDonald's in New York City and than $341 at Macy's also in NYC. Her checking account was empty.
What?!
I called the bank--Chase. Hate 'em. Sorry, is that too strong a word for you? Let me try again....Nope, hate 'em's all that comes to mind. It turned out that it was a good thing this happened today and not tomorrow. I can still reach her tonight via my niece's cell phone. As of tomorrow, getting in touch with #1 will be a lot harder--not impossible, I'm sure, just harder.
Here's the bad thing. In order to report fraud on the account, she has to do it. It's her card. Even though I'm on the account, I can't make the report. So, in other words, if this ever happens again, we're screwed. Since I'm the one who's keeping track of the account, I'm the one who would know it had happened, and the only way to get the money back is to report fraud. They won't allow me to do it, so #1 would have to. Just not sure how this would work. Again, probably not impossible, but WAY inconvenient. In short, I have very little trust for Chase.
Tomorrow, we switch banks. I called a credit union right after all of this happened, and they said they had a way to set up a card for #1. I'm not sure if this is going to work now that she's not here to sign for it, but I guess we'll see.
Wow! Who knew?
I think Chase'll be sad to lose our 11 accounts and, eventually, our mortgage. Wouldn't you think?
5 comments:
Chase treated us poorly more than once when they took over Washington Mutual (sad! We loved WaMu). They pretty much told us straight up that they cater to large business, not personal or small business accounts. So we switched to Keybank next door. Now Key has our checking account, business accounts, and mortgage (they got us an incredible rate for pretty much no cost)! We have loved them!
Linda had exactly the same experience last time she flew out of the same airport, a couple of months ago. There are obviously thieves cruising the airport and grabbing credit card numbers.
Argh! Gotta love the rules and regulations that are there for 'security'. Anyway, I'm so sorry! Glad it happened when it did though.
Oh that's awful :( I hope you find a bank that makes it easier/possible. Perhaps putting you as the main person on the card, and moving her to secondary, will fix it? In any case, I'm so sorry it happened.
I had a similar situation a few years ago. It is all very irritating. I sometimes wonder if our money is safe anywhere.
Good luck and blessings!
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