Identity Theft

A few weeks ago I discovered that my credit card bill had been buried beneath a mountain of other bills and letters. Thus it was due the day I found it! I called the company to pay via phone. Of course, the company outsource their help lines, so the worker on the other line and I had some language issues. I could hardly understand her English under her thick accent and she was thoroughly confused by my Minnesota accent. Finally, I was sent to an account specialist.

This specialist immediately asked me - in clearer English - about some mysterious charges on my credit card. Sure enough, I had never bought anything from "Yahoo Voice" and "Net Zero." I was so shocked - after all, this was not what I was calling about - I simply wanted to pay my bill. But this took precedence. There were about $100 worth of charges. After taking care of this, the specialist sent me back to the account director. Unfortunately, it was the initial lady.

We stumbled our way through the process. Somehow she thought I lost my card rather than having my identity stolen somehow (I do a ton of shopping on line - amazon, ebay, espn, nfl shop, art.com . . . so it's no real surprise that my credit card number was hacked. In fact, it's the second time it's happened. So I'm used to this). Rather than try to explain that my identity was stolen, I just let her go on believing that my card had been lost in South Dakota.

A week later an affidavit arrived in the mail, calling for me to complete it and mark any further fraudulent charges. When the bill arrived, there were another $100 in charges. So I started feeling guilty that I had 'lied' about it being lost. I thought I'd come clean and call the credit card company again.

This time the man - in India or some other far off place - on the other line garbled his way through the mandatory greeting. Before he even finished, I hung up. I wasn't going to go through that again. So I just filled out the affidavit, got it notarized and sent it in.

I think big corporations not only outsource because it's cheaper, but also must do it to get fewer complaints. I mean who is going to sit through all of that? It's just not worth it.