It's that time of year when the world is in love (with Christmas shopping. We're apparently skipping Thanksgiving this year.) Naturally, the thieves are trying to get an early start on grabbing those stocking stuffers, and seem to be looking to stuff their stockings with gifts purchased by defrauding our BB&T credit card. Fortunately, our bank has excellent fraud protection. Customer service notified my wife and I less than 24 hours after the abnormal transactions began to appear on our account. By mutual agreement BB&T canceled that compromised credit card number so no further charges would get approved, but not before our identity thieves managed to order Walmart gift cards and cell phones through an online account. The customer service representative assured us that we wouldn't be held responsible for the fraudulent charges, but nevertheless I was perturbed by the idea someone successfully used my name to steal from a business that heavily discounts merchandise to benefit the customers. Not to mention, credit card holders are forced to pay higher interest rates because the credit card companies can't afford to eat the losses, either. These thieves were using my identity to steal from you. We all pay higher prices at Walmart to compensate for the losses to shoplifting. We all pay higher interest rates on our credit cards--not only to mitigate losses due to bankruptcies and failure to pay by the cardholder, but also because of fraud. As a result, I'm not a big fan of liars or thieves. But in our case, the story has a happy ending. Walmart emailed to … [Read more...]