October update

fam in Toronto, at Uncle Eddie's and Aunt Nazha's
Nazha and Syd
Is she teething?

So this month we had issues in the bank account. When we got back from Canada we found that there was an automatic withdrawal set up on our account for some prepaid debit card. Upon interrogating Keresa, I was frustrated that she could have spent $150 on a prepaid debit card and not even remember it. Well, she assured me it must be fraud. Turns out it was. We assumed someone must have taken one of our checks from the mailbox, or someone who enters the checks at the power company or water company just copied our account info off of a check, including routing number etc. Then at the end of the week there was another automatic withdrawal set up for another prepaid debit card with a different company, this time for $170! Luckily our credit union is really good about helping us fight these and they have refunded these speedily. Our account has an 01 for savings, then 02 for checking. The manager at our branch advised us to open an 03 checking and move all our stuff into there to keep the fraud user from taking more. Sadly, we received this counsel just after we paid the monthly bills, so we have to wait for all those checks to clear before we can move the funds. Since then only one more auto transaction has been set up. We found that our mail also contained a bill from our cell phone provider advising us we had better pay last month's bill or our phones would be shut off. AHA! The missing check! So either someone stole our mail on the day we paid that bill, or a mailman did, or the person who enters the payments at Cingular did. I suppose I would advise everyone to either drop your checks in a locked mail box, drop box, or other secure mailing box. Or pay your bills online or over the phone. I asked my boss what he does to protect himself and he said he just pays every bill with his credit card, then if there is a fraud on his credit card, he is not out the money until the bank can refund his money, the credit card company is. Just be careful everyone!