OK, up front this is not meant to be a political post.
Surprisingly, this is a post to bring some praise to one of the eeeeevvvvviiilllll big banks and a situation that I was involved in recently.
Now I do not think like a criminal. Thus, I do not know how what I am about to share with you can be done.
I bank with Chase bank. Not particularly by choice but because my former bank, Washington Mutual, was essentially handed over to Chase in the big bank bailout of 2008. And Washington Mutual took over Home Savings, which took over Coast Federal Savings. That is how I ended up with Chase.
Enough of that.
The story begins last Wednesday as I did a cursory online search to see if some outstanding checks had cleared. I looked and noticed that a couple had not. When I got home from work and checked my home e-mail, I received one from Chase. It is called an "Account alert". Now I was kind of leery of opening it up. What if it was a fake? And opening it unleashed a computer virus? Or even something worse?
Well, I opened the e-mail.
And it was a summary of four recent transactions. Three of the four were legitimate transactions. But the fourth one was a real doozy.
Since I live in Pasadena, California and work in nearby Glendale, I was amazed to see that somehow, that very same day, I was in Miami, Florida and bought something for about $89 bucks.
OK, maybe I took an extra-long lunch. Nah, I don't think so.
Anyhow, I went to the part of the e-mail that said if there is any suspicious charges to click on a box. Literally as soon as I clicked on the box, my phone rang.
It was Chase bank. And it was the fraud division.
I told the very nice gal at the other end that there was no way that I could have been in Miami because I was at work and did not buy anything for $89.
So the gal explained the process. That they did have to let the initial transaction go through. But because I am disputing it, it would be back in my account within 48 business hours. And I was assured that if anything was outstanding, which there were two outstanding checks (yeah, I am old-school and still write checks)out there, any charges for overdraft would be reimbursed.
Needless to say, the next day one of the checks did come in. And because of the $89 "charge", my account was overdrawn. And I had to wait for a new debit card to make any other transactions. And of course, this drama went into the weekend. But I was assured by Monday, all would be well.
And sure enough, Monday the $89 and the $34 overdraft charge was no more. That money was back in the account. The check that "overdrew" my account was redeposited. The other check I had cleared. And there was still money left in the account.
Some important lessons learned.
One, make sure to sign up for your bank and or credit union's e-mail alerts. Had I not looked at that, I may have not even noticed the disputed charge for another couple of days.
Two, make sure to get online at least four days a week to check and make sure that there are not situations as I described above. The sooner a problem like that is resolved, the better for yourself.
Three, be very careful how you use your debit card. If you use it as a charge, it is probably a good thing. If you use it and then use your PIN, try to cover up as you enter your PIN number.
What I can not figure out is whether the crook or crooks that accessed my debit card got my information from. Were they Chase employees gone rogue? And what about the PIN number? How can they figure that out? Again, as I noted above, I just do not think like this kind of criminal. Thus I would not be very good at what these people did.
As much as big banks get righteously criticized, in a situation such as I was in, I am very glad and thankful that even they realized that I can't be in two places at once. The the Miami charge was, well bogus.
So here is kudos to Chase bank and their e-mail alert. Because of that I was able to stop a crook from cashing in on my bank account.
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