Stay tuned... (as well as my advice for today)

Tomorrow I will be showing y'all my Christmas decorations. I just have to take pictures of my outdoor wreaths this afternoon. Last night when I thought about it it was too dark!

In other news, this week I have been dealing with the huge nuisance of having my credit card number stolen. Well, take that back- it was my DEBIT CARD NUMBER, which makes it worse since that is my lifeline! I never have cash and don't ever use checks, and I have credit cards but I refuse to use them because I am paying them off because of past stupidity in the spending department. So, seeing as how my debit card was compromised, I am playing the waiting game on getting a new one sent to me. On Monday they said 7 to 10 BUSINESS days. I am sure hoping they are underpromising and will overdeliver, as WEG said he thinks would happen.

In any case, on Monday I went online and looked at my bank statement, wondering how in the world I had spent that much over the weekend, only to discover in my pending charges that there was a $119 charge to NOUCard.com. Not having a clue what that was, I went to their website, which still did not help much, but made me think it was some sort of discount card you could get for online retailers. The $119 would have been for the platinum lifetime membership. Knowing that I did not make this charge, and certainly did not make it on purpose if I mistakenly checked a box while doing online shopping or something, I called the 1-800 number on the website. 50 minutes of being on hold, and I finally reached a representative.

Much to my surprise, the lady told me the charge had been made on Thursday. Well, I worked all day at Holiday Market on Thursday and had not been near a computer, so I told her this and asked her what exactly had been purchased. She then told me that they were an online billing site for ADULT ENTERTAINMENT WEBSITES....what?! I was definitely sure at that point that the charge was fraudulent, so I told her as much. She asked me what my internet service provider was, I told her Time Warner Cable, and she tracked the purchase back to a computer on an ISP out of Illinois. Luckily, because she could clearly see the charge had been made on my credit card and not by me, she agreed to do a credit. But, that meant I had to go to the bank and ask for them to send me a new card and make sure I watched my account til the credit went through. Thankfully, the credit went through this morning, so I am no longer out the $119, but I'm still waiting on my new debit card.

Ladies, I was very lucky that I am so diligent in watching the charges on my online statement. It was a rarity that it took me from Thursday until Monday to notice the charge, but I was super busy this weekend and didn't go online to look.

So, my advice for today is for you to pay close attention to your bank statement online, as well as your credit card statement. You can easily set these up online so you can monitor them constantly, rather than just once a month when the paper statement comes. Right here at Christmas, I'd hate for the same thing that happened to me to happen to one of you! People who think they have the right to use other people's money like it is their own infuriate me, and I hope we'll all protect ourselves against fraud!