How It Feels To Be a Victim of Credit Card Fraud

This Sunday while mowing the yard, I missed a call from an "unknown caller." When I was finished I checked my voice mail to find I had been the victim of credit card fraud.

For about two years my friend worked as Card & Online Services Director at the credit union where I am a member. Essentially, her job was to assist members with any issues with their online banking and any disputes to charges on their accounts. She told me on many occasions about how she had been working with outside companies on fraud issues but it had never happened to me. Until this Sunday.

The company that called me said that someone had made a counterfeit copy of my card and used it at a Walgreens in Oswego, IL, a small town located about 50 miles Southwest of Chicago. Someone tried to use my money, without my permission, in a town over 740 miles from Tuscaloosa.They didn't find my card because I lost it. They didn't get my information and charge something online. They actually made a fraudulent copy of my debit card and swiped it at a store counter.

The feeling that came over me, I have still not been able to describe. I guess it's mostly fear. If someone could spend $114 of my money in another state by making a credit card that reads my information, what else could they do? We hear stories of credit card fraud and identity theft all of the time but do we really think it'll happen to us? Or is that something that only happens to the people in the television and radio commercials?

Luckily my credit union caught the first charge and blocked my card before they had the chance to spend another $68 at the same place. They were also able to make sure I got the first $114 back into my account.

I think now, two days removed, that fear has subsided and maybe some anger has worked it's way into my thought process. Yeah, $114 is not a lot of money but I worked for that money, not the nimrod thief that bought, whatever they bought from Walgreens. They worked hard on making sure that I and the employees of my credit union wasted hours cleaning up the mess they made!

As I researched and dug into the subject more I realized that thousands of people are the victim of credit card fraud and identity theft each day! According to an article on dailyfinance.com,

Last year, 66% of identity theft victims reported a direct financial loss from their most recent incident. On average, victims whose personal information was misused suffered direct losses of $9,650 (the median was $1,900). New account fraud victims experienced an average of $7,135 in direct losses ($600 median), and credit card fraud victims averaged direct losses of $1,003 ($200 median).

Has this ever happened to you? How did it make you feel? Leave a comment below.