To all my brothers and sisters...

[FreeMasonPride]

I don't post this as just a Freemason, but mainly as a father, and a husband.

Let this be a warning to all of you, no matter where you are in life, single or married, or what country you live in.

Sunday September 9th 2012, my wife's debit card was rejected at a local grocery store. We didn't think to much of it other than the irratation of the situation.
We logged online to our bank account later that night and noticed a $4.60 from a casino in Las Vegas Nevada. This was not ours. We are on the East coast of the United States and hadn't been within 2000 miles of Las Vegas.
Monday morning I called my bank, told them of the situation and they started investigating. They told me that is was just a mistake...that the vendor in Las Vegas had removed the charge and everything was fine...it was not.

Apparently that charge was a "test" charge.

Within one hour of my conversation with the bank, someone proceeded to empty my bank account with $20 and $40 charges (they do small charges so that they don't grab the attention of the banks security software). Once this was done, my family had no money to live off of. Even though it was obvious that we had been robbed it didn't matter...we had no money. On top of that, we had overdraft charges from the checks we had written.
Brothers, this week has been hell. Between the police reports, signing affidavits, and having to live with out the ability to put gas in our vehicles, this has been a lesson I will never forget. My wife and I only use debit cards, credit cards, and checks. We never have cash money. S0 when this happened, it hit us hard!

Brothers, take every precaution to make sure this never happens to you. Even to point of paranoia! You don't want to have to tell your kids that you don't have money for their school lunch.

Fraternally,
Mark

 

[Bill_F]

Sorry to hear of your troubles Brother. This just goes to show it can happen to anybody! I work at a place that accepts credit,debit cards and every single month, without exaggaration, I hear a similar story. Its running rampant out there.

 

[Gary2112]

That is horrible news. I wish you the best of luck in getting your finances sorted out.

 

[Ashlar2006]

Brother , not long ago I did my morning on-line bank account check and found someone up North used our debit card . Money we do not have to spend willy nilly . luckily I caught it in time and called the bank to let them know . What scares me is , the bank already knew my wife's debit card number had been compromised ! , they sent her a new card with no explanation as to why , when we called to question the need for a new card , they gave us no reason . It was a "just because" explanation but said it was fine to continue using the old card because there was nothing to worry about and her debit card and our money was safe . We were confused about the whole thing and did not get any answers until two weeks later we finally get a letter in the mail explaining that someone has stolen her debit card information , but it was too late , someone already went on their spending spree .

Luckily , we did not have to fight to have our money replaced . They did want witnesses to write them letters stating we were not in Illinois at the time , and wanted receipts of said transactions . I asked " how are we supposed to have receipts for purchases we did not make !?!?" . They did not press the issue , returned our money to our account . luckily we did not bounce any checks or we would have had to fight the over draft fees .