Category: Finance

Leave me alone with the fraud

Fresh off the credit card fraud experience, I got a new one today. Phone call out of the blue from an 878 area code. This is from the area surrounding Pittsburgh, PA, but people are accustomed to area codes with 8s and 7s being toll-free and business numbers. I actually thought, “This would be a good phone number to do fraud with”.

He said he was from Truist Bank, where my business accounts are. He told me there was a strange wire coming from my account, $1500 to Sonya something or other. I was already suspicious, but when he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me the last 4 of my account, and said it was “from my primary checking”, I stopped him as he was about to go into the verification process where he gathers information about me to verify that I’m the account holder. Truist actually does this, and kind of stupidly, to be honest, but only when I initiate.

He then tried to gently argue with me when I told him I don’t give that information to people who call me and that I was going to call the bank. That made me over 99% certain it was fraud, so I hung up with him and called Truist. I manage about $700K of client funds at Truist so fraud is kind of a big deal.

They confirmed there were no wires coming out, and that I’d get notifications if there were, so all good. Remember, any legitimate caller will absolutely not argue with you if you tell them you don’t give that out to people who call you and that you are going to call the number on the website, or on the back of your credit card, or whatever.

Credit monitoring companies will simply freeze to death in the winter

I have credit monitoring through Creditwise (credit card benefit from Capital One) and MyIDCare (I think this was from a data breach settlement though I forget which one). Yesterday Creditwise flagged a credit inquiry that I was not aware of from Barclays Bank. I do not have any accounts there, although I know sometimes the bank you do business with is not the one that shows up, so I guess it could have been legitimate?

I called Barclays through the number on their website (NOT the number that showed up on the credit report because who trusts that?). They did not have any record of an inquiry.

I went back to Creditwise and they said to contact the reporting company, so I contacted Transunion. They couldn’t tell me anything more about the inquiry, copy/pasted some instructions about reporting it to the federal government, then disconnected the chat.

As an aside, it is deeply problematic that Transunion won’t let me see anything or dispute anything without giving them and then verifying my phone number. Transunion should be launched into the sun.

Then MyIDCare also flagged the inquiry. My skepticism at the phone number listed for Barclays was validated, as the number at MyIDCare was DIFFERENT from the one at Creditwise. So I called MyIDCare. They basically said the same thing as Creditwise.

So I have two monitoring services that are unable to tell me literally anything more than the name of the bank and the date. I reported it at IdentityTheft.gov so I imagine some Dogebro is checking to see if he can hack my Venmo and ICE is looking at my citizenship status so that’s a good time.

There’s a Simpsons episode that’s applicable here (there always is), where we “fix” problems with increasingly worse problems until finally some problem resolves itself (here, the collapse of the global economy).

This is why you always pay with a credit card

Yesterday morning around 10am, I got a notification of a charge on my credit card. I didn’t recognize it – it was about $10 at walmart.com. We generally do not patronize union-busting establishments (don’t ask me about my Amazon Prime account), so this was unusual. I called Capital One and they cancelled the card. This was frustrating, though necessary, since I know the number by heart and I’ve become somewhat attached to it.

By 1130, I had a notification on my phone that my card number on Google Pay had been updated so I could continue to use Google Pay even though my physical card was cancelled.

Noon today, my new card arrived via FedEx.

It’s really amazing that in barely more than 24 hours, the ONLY issue I have is having to memorize a new card number. Capital One even updated the number at many of my existing recurring payments, and provided a list of those they were not able to change themselves. I’m going to wait until I get an email saying they couldn’t charge my card because I’m lazy, but I appreciate the thought.

So, just one more reason to get a Capital One Venture X card. It’s about $400 a year but that comes with a $300 travel credit if you book through their service. It covered my Global Entry fee, and there are a ton of other benefits. It’s the best credit card I’ve ever used.