Fraud and Loathing in Ohio

Part of this week has been an adventure. Somehow, someone got my debit card number and promptly started to drain my account. My guess is that some company I’ve ordered from has gotten hacked.

Thankfully my bank is very good about this sort of thing and I had the money back in my account the next day, and the resulting overdraft fees dropped the day after that.

As a result, I am now over my heart attack (figurative, not literal). All I can say is that it’s not a happy thing to look at your account balance and see $20 there when there should have been significantly more than that, and I’m glad it’s all cleared up now.

However, the day that it took to clear everything up was special (not in the happy way), and it really took most of the whole day between calling my bank and the merchants who authorized the transactions, filling out the fraud paperwork, getting it notarized, fax it to my bank, etc.

On the upside, I found out that one of the local banks only charges $1 to notarize things for non-members, so that’s good to know for future reference.

To close, I would like to say the following things:

I love my bank. They are absolutely wonderful to work with and get things resolved insanely quickly.

Yahoo Voice was actually good about the whole thing and refunded the charge of their own volition without having to have papers filed.

Sony Online Entertainment, however, was absolutely horrible to work with. First off, their support line is long distance. You’d think that, with a company that size, they would have an 800 number. Then I had to spend almost half an hour trying to convince the rather inflexible person on the other end of the line that I did not, in fact, authorize the purchases, that I didn’t let anyone in the house do so, and that I don’t even *play* MMORPGs. She was actually trying to get me to say that I had done it myself after I told her that most certainly was not the case. Repeatedly.

Just how many times can you say “I am the sole cardholder and I didn’t authorize the bloody charge” anyway? After that, I was told that the only thing I could do is file fraud papers. This was after they determined it really *was* fraudulent because, looking at the account in question, the same person had used a number of different cards to pay for his purchases.

If that was all they were going to do, they could have told me that up front and saved me half an hour off of my plan.

Current mood: tired
Current music: Cowboy Bebop – Call Me Call Me

Randomness

As a lot of people who know me in person can tell you, I’m a music junky. My CD collection is somewhere on the order of 400 discs plus the vinyl and cassettes that I have sitting in storage. I’ve turned a lot of people on to a lot of different kinds of music over the years and I’ve even DJ’ed on occasion.

It’s occasionally been half-joked that I should start a club if I ever have the means to do so. Personally, I think that could be an interesting trip.

My latest musical meandering has led me to Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High album. I have to say that I really like most of it. There are a couple of tracks that I don’t care too much for, but on the whole, it’s a solid CD.

After listening to it for a while again today, I finally realized part of the reason that I enjoy it so much. A few of their songs remind me of a band on campus when I was an undergrad – Red Wanting Blue; especially their live shows. It’s just the general vibe, and I have to say that I enjoy it.

Current mood: I’m here
Current music: Fall Out Boy - Thriller

Sometimes... Laughter Hurts

You know, when you think of Robin Williams, you generally think of kids movies. Granted, he’s done some other, darker, movies, but mostly you think of things like Mrs. Doubtfire or Aladdin.

Today, I got his Broadway CD.

Let’s say it’s a bit of a departure from kid-friendly stuff. The man pulls no punches and doesn’t bother with censoring language.

It’s absolutely hilarious. I’ve literally spent half the time I listened to it doubled over from laughter (and I have to say that I really needed it today).

There is no way I could drive and listen to this at the same time.

If you love smart assed political and social commentary, this is right up your alley. However, if profanity offends you or you have little kids around, I’d advise you skip it.

Current mood: better
Current music: Robin Williams

YARG!!!!!

I appologize to anyone who tries to email me this weekend, and anyone who gets spam from my domain. I've been getting hammered today by "bounced" emails that have addresses that don't exist on my domain. We're talking over 1000 in the last half hour, and it shows no signs of slowing.

Apparently, some spambot thought my domain sounded like a great one to use.

*sighs*

Current mood: p****d off
Current music: Our Lady Peace - Tomorrow Never Knows

(EDIT: Well, that was fun. 24 hours and more than 2 thousand "bounced" messages later it seems that things have calmed down again. I really hate when that happens. Now, I wonder how many spam blacklists that's landed me on...)