Motherfuckers

Matt, Adam and I paid for our respective dinner at New Holland Brewery Thursday night without our respective credit cards. Debit cards, in the latter cases. She’s going to charge you for my pizza, Adam predicted. We have identical debit cards. I grimly agreed that the odds of a screw up were large, especially so considering we three invested the last 10 minutes cataloguing the waitress’ deficiencies.

(sidebar: the painfully handsome guy who comes into the cafe every day and is also a student at the seminary just made out with his waspish girlfriend. man, you can do so much better than her!)

The waitress returns to our table apologising... we knew it! Sir, do you have another form of payment. She’s looking at me. Adam and Matt look at me. I look blankly. Adam offers a story our cousin bank cards declining lately for their own reasons. I hand over my Chase card. She cheerfully takes it and wanders away into the back. Our conversation returns to the inexplicable nature of credit cards and their inexplicable habit of making people feel like deadbeats. Oh well, she’s back and it’s time to go. I’m sorry, sir. This card is expired. It expired in August. The $10 from my earlier ATM stop can’t be refused, right? What the fuck is going on?

Plans for the gym? Strike. Plans for coffee in Saugatuck? Nope. Plans for reading? Nuh-uh. Home to check credit cards? Yeeesssss.

To make a long story slightly less long, I discovered that somebody stole my checking account information. Two pending debits appear in my checking account: on for $22 from an Ihop and one for $220 from a Publix, in that order. Now, having lived in the South I happened to know that there are not any Publix on the Michigan side of Cincinnati. I also know that, having been the boyfriend of a vehement food snob, Ihop couldn’t *pay* me to eat $22 worth of their food, these two transactions are totally bogus. I called the emergency number on the back of debit card. The woman canceled the card with a formality I found odd only later. Then I called the credit union emergency number next. They advised going into the nearest branch at first open. The Holland office opens at 9a. It is currently 844a. C’mon.... C’mon!...

Having money stolen from you is pretty awful. What’s slightly less awful is that the amount isn’t very much by some standards. My colleague Ayman had thousands of dollars taken from his checking account. Some scheme operated by an organisation in England deducted pennies from his account, which he understandably didn’t notice, then removed the much larger amount days later. The salt rubbed into the wound though was that Ayman was on vacation in Lebanon when the fraud happened. His bank, as he tells it, took care of the situation by closing the account, opening a new one and returning the stolen money. Without knowing what my credit union will do in this situation, I can only hope that they behave with the due diligence as Ayman’s bank: they trace the transaction, close my account and give me back the stolen money. $240 may not be much money to some people but it’s a goddamn fortune for me. Oh! And the salt in my wounds is that the motherfuckers overdrew my checking account. Fuck you, thieves!

The manager of the local credit union branch confirmed that no less than five debits came through my account Thursday night from Palm Beach County, Florida. Each transaction required a separate printout for me to sign and date confirming their fraudulent nature. The manager then sent them via fax to what I assume is their fraud department in Grand Rapids where I further assume someone pushed buttons allowing the money be returned to my account.

On the whole this incident, while shitty, was largely painless. A new debit card is on its way and is expected next week. I cannot pay until it arrives. The book on order from Amazon rejected. What money taken was returned the same day. Props to the credit union for handling the incident with professionalism. I want to follow up with the branch manager on Monday out of curiosity as to how they’ll handle this situation. So far as they’re concerned, some people stole hundreds of dollars from them. It’s not only me saying “fuck you, thieves!” My credit union must be thinking “let’s file felony charges!”