University of Dayton - MyLife

Credit Card Fraud and Questioning our Government

As the title suggests, this topic is going to be a very serious one. Over the past week or so I have dealt with a lot of issues in regards to money, none of which, I would like to add, are of any fault of mine!

To begin with, early last Thursday morning I was causally checking my checking account (no pun intended), and "out of the blue" I discover that there was a pending transaction in an amount of $710.46. This startled me, not only because the transaction was made at 5:07 in the morning, but because I had never made that purchase! As any person in my same situation would do, I called my financial institution and explained the situation to them. This is where the confusion started. Now let me let you readers know that I have been a loyal customer of this specific agency for the past 15 years. A representative there explained to me that this apparent fraud that happened was in fact hard to fix. Of all the things I would expect to hear from them, the last thing that I thought I would hear was that I would need to try and find the place where the internet transaction was made! I was under the impression that my financial institution, the place where I THOUGHT I could keep my money so that it would be safe from predicaments similar to the one that I am currently in! If not, I would assume that it would be safer for me to keep my money under my bed rather than trusting that it would be okay in an institution.

Fortunately for me, I was able to contact the company and explain to them that I did not make the purchase and if they would cancel the pending transaction. They agreed that they would and needless to say I was very thankful. The reason why I was so thankful because later when I talked to my financial institution, they said that it would take about 30 days, yes...30 days before they would have been able to credit my account back due to the fact that they would need to wait until the transaction posted, then they would need to speak to some type of legal consol to decide what they would need to do.

Overall this experience was very trying to say the least, but it doesn't stop there. Just a few days ago I got a letter from my friendly Ohio state taxation office. When I first saw the letter from them I was overjoyed because I thought that it was another rebate check from them but it was the exact opposite. Apparently some "fine gentleman" (and I do use that term loosely) at the taxation office left his laptop in his car and it was stolen. This would normally be an inconvenience just to him, but lucky for me as well as 250,000 other individuals, (including senators and other high ranking officials) this computer had our social security numbers on it! Obviously I am at a loss for words because for the past two plus decades I have entrusted our government would make sure my identity is safe from people but it seems that I may have been mislead! Prior to this, having someone access my personal bank account seemed somewhat random and something that my financial institute claims, "happens to 1 in 5 people," but now I am wondering that there might be some type of connection between the two!

Apparently the social security card information was stolen on June 10th and my personal bank account information was accessed on June 15th. Coincidence? I think not! I am very upset and confused about how something like this could happen in this day in age when there have been such advancements in technology and security measures. I am in the process now of looking into what type of legal action I need to take because this is absolutely ridiculous. The only reassurance I have is that I am not alone but to be honest, that doesn't make me feel much better. In response to this, the state of Ohio has decided to give some sort of "protection? for a year which personally I think is pointless. The reason why I say this is because if the person who has access to my social security number knows this, they can access my account in 2 years and i will be UNPROTECTED, did our government ever think of that? These questions and more need to be answered and I will not rest until they are! I hate to sound so upset but wouldn't you be? I do love you all and make sure you have a pleasant day and keep your fingers crossed that I get everything resolved.

Jun 27, 2007 3:23 PM Permalink