WoW Attack

Thank goodness for fraud monitoring.  Yesterday after work, I got on the Interstate before I realized how low on gas I was.  My car had determined I had 20 miles left on the tank, so I figured I would be fine until I reached our exit.  I stopped at the gas station, put my debit card in and the screen told me to go see the cashier.  I was really annoyed because that means I have to get Aiden out of the car seat, lock the car, deal with the guy waiting in line behind me giving me the stink eye, etc.  I threw my card back in the machine.  I'm pregnant, I'm tired, maybe I just entered the wrong pin.  Nope.  Same thing again.  I tried a third time, just for good measure.  No luck.

I unload Aiden and head in to see if the cashier can reset the process or whatever.  Nope, she can't.  I have to give her my card in the store.  Problem with using my card in the store is I have to tell her how much to put on my card.  With the fluctuating gas prices lately, I never know if it's going to take $35, $40 or $45 to fill up my tank.  And I hate stopping for gas more frequently than I have to.  But!  I have no choice.  Put $30 on my card and be done with it.

It wouldn't go through inside either.  By this time I am SO frustrated.

"Do you know why it's not going through? Does it tell you that?"

"Insufficient funds?"  She shrugs her shoulders.

What?!  There should be plenty of money in there!  No reason I shouldn't be able to spend $30.  She didn't seem confident that this was the reason.  So, why would she take a stab in the dark as to why it wasn't working?  FINE.  Give me my card back.  I ran out to the car and used my credit card.  I HATE using my credit card.  I think I will feel better about it after Travis and I have paid off the rest of our credit card debt.  Til then, I like to avoid using The Card.

While I was waiting for my gas to pump, I asked Travis to check our account (he has easy access on his phone).  He called me back two minutes later and asked if I had spent $140 online today.  What?  No!  I don't make purchases over $50 without talking to Travis first.  Plus, even if I had spent $140, there should still be plenty of money in the account. 

After some more digging, Travis found something like 15 unexplained transactions adding up to $820.  All done yesterday at some video game website (most notably used for World of Warcraft, WoW).  Apparently, the bank noticed this unusual activity and cancelled my card.  That's why it wouldn't work.  They were already in the process of reversing the transactions and had it down to $140 left to fix by closing time last night. 

THANK GOD.  That is so much more doable.  The bank said if they are unable to stop the transactions before they go through, we will have to call back and dispute the charges.  Hopefully it doesn't come to that.  It's not a huge deal, just an annoying use of our time.  Travis called the website to see if he could find out who had made the transactions.  He was unable to find that out since they didn't do it on a specific account. 

They did say this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME.  Ironically, it happened to a friend of mine from work yesterday as well.  I told my dad about this and he said the same thing happened to my brother a few years ago.  I guess those gaming folks know a thing or two about computers and the interwebz and such.  HA.

I'm hoping the rest of it gets taken care of without a hitch.  Both the bank and the WoW website people seemed to think we would be taken care of, no problem.  Here's hoping!