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Francesca Rudkin: My warning after having my credit card stolen

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Sun, 20 Jun 2021, 12:48PM
(Photo / Getty Images)
(Photo / Getty Images)

Francesca Rudkin: My warning after having my credit card stolen

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Sun, 20 Jun 2021, 12:48PM

So, it’s been a weird week.

Last Saturday someone stole our garden wheelie bin from the curbside.

It can’t have been an easy heist. It was a very full bin, a very heavy bin, and a bin filled with sharp prickly bougainvillaea cuttings. It will have been a bummer to empty – so perhaps there’s a touch of karma there.

As far as theft goes - other than my intrigue as to exactly how the crime played out and who drove the getaway car - it’s not really worth getting upset about is it? People lose much more valuable things than a full garden bin.

The garden bin collection company didn’t bat an eyelid. They kindly delivered a new bin at the beginning of the week. I am curious to know though if hidden bin theft is a thing? Is there a wave of green bin theft out there?

On Monday I experienced another first. And another theft. This time, it was my credit card.

I’m going to make an admission here. I was an early adopter of internet shopping. I embraced the convenience of shopping online without any real thought for the risks and I’ve never had a problem.

And may have been a little dismissive of other people’s cautionary tales.

But on Monday someone brought a Dyson vacuum cleaner on my credit card – a card which was sitting safely in my wallet. Thankfully I noticed the purchase only a couple of hours after it was made.

I was pretty sure no one in my family had used the card to make the purchase. If my partner had made the purchase I’d be worried he’d received a head knock and was suffering from concussion, and a glance at my kid’s bedrooms will tell you they’re not about to shout themselves a Dyson either.

And so began an interesting week of cancelling the card. Waiting for the payment to complete the pending phase – which seemed like the perfect opportunity to cancel the transaction, so I still don’t quite understand why credit card providers and banks can’t sort that out – and lodging a dispute.

I now wait for up to 30 days for the bank to investigate, and once complete, I’ve been told they won’t share any information with me.

I’ll probably never know how my card details were stolen, and there’s a good chance no one will found responsible. All I can hope for is to get my money back.

The bank presumes my details will be taken from an online payment. It happens often, the gentleman at the end of the bank’s lost or stolen cards line told me. “There is nothing you could have done” and “You’ve done nothing wrong” he kept telling me.

And he’s right. I do all the things you should – keep the card safe, never email my card details or share passwords, use reputable websites, keep an eye on scams, use face recognition, sign in etc.

These are all the kinds of things you’ll find on a ‘Tips to Prevent Credit Card Fraud List’, which we can all just google.

It seems that having your credit card details stolen can come down to just bad luck.

So, consider this another cautionary tale from someone who took a ‘it won’t happen to me’ approach. Keep an eye on your credit card statements!

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