i've been robbed....

.......of my credit card number! yes, that's right ppl, i am now one of thousands of victims of credit card theft. i received a call today from visa asking me if i had tried to use my credit card lately. after thinking for 5 seconds, i remembered that my credit card didn't get accepted at chevron on saturday when i tried to gas up (but i just attributed that to the magnetic strip being partially scratched ). but it wasn't actually that incident that triggered the warning in my "file". as i'm freaking out about this phone call, they ask me a series of 20 questions just to verify who i am. once they're convinced that i am me, they asked me if i had ever heard of a certain company and someone's name (only my number was stolen, not my name). i think my extreme shock was convincing when i said NO! there was a charge of over $1,000 from this company in alberta, followed by a separate charge for just under $200 from the same company, along with several taxi rides (from different taxi companies). visa then asked me if i was trying to charge a large sum of money from ticketmaster - i was truly appalled at the nerve of this credit card thief to buy event tickets using my number! only after lunch did i realize that i had authorized ticketmaster to charge my credit card for the canucks playoffs :P so needless to say, orca bay was calling me to confirm my credit card number.

i'm very grateful to visa for catching this expensive error, and contacting me as soon as they did. i am truly appalled by this experience! i have always made an effort to properly shred all credit card statements and expired credit cards, and then i take it a step further by separating the shredded documents into different bags, so hopefully they can't be taped back together again.

one thing that dawned on me as visa recited my recent transactions, was that i occasionally shop online w/this credit card, and my last 2 transactions (right before my number was stolen) were on future shop for some photos. i have shopped online (at various stores) umpteen times, and i have never really worried about security, but i guess one thing i can do is ensure that little "lock" symbol always shows up to tell me that i'm on a secure website. however, even that can fail sometimes, as several years ago, future shop did have a breach in their security where credit card numbers were accessible to whomever. i personally have no idea how stuff like that can happen, or how ppl gain access to such confidential information, but it does, and in this technologically-driven world, everything's up for grabs.

fortunately for me, visa was able to confirm that my identity is still intact. the thief only had my one credit card number, but i had them double check that my other number was safe, and it is. so now, visa is sending me an affadavit for me to verify that all of these charges are indeed fraudulent, and my name is will still be in good standing :)

i do everything in my power to ensure my credit card safety, but news and investigative reporting show businesses or employees who steal the numbers as you're making a purchase, or businesses that don't destroy their copies of receipts properly, or when you provide your credit card number over the telephone, or you get dumpster divers who are paid for credit card numbers and names. there's a lot of ways to get your credit card stolen at any given time. it's a scary world out there, and you never know what can happen. like my blog says......sh*t happens!