Fraudster and Customer Service

Oh I feel so protected; everybody seems to be watching out for me.

I didn’t think I needed protection when I grew up in a village where nobody locked doors or if they did, a fanlight was left open in order to get into the house in case the keys got lost.

Now my house is my castle. Hubby always was the family security rep, and now has developed a tight regime of opening windows for birds not to suffocate in the conservatory and closing doors for burglars not to get in and to have double bolts at the rear – allegedly an insurance thing, but I think he just likes it that way. I’m not wasting my time anymore - he does his security round anyway, ignoring any of my handwritten and signed confirmations of ‘task already done’.

And now my bank is watching out for me! I’m such a lucky girl. At age 45 or so I dared doing my first internet purchase using credit card. Hubby had successfully scared me off doing so by telling me bed time stories about bad people sneaking through the cable, stealing everything - even myself. I would just vanish into thin air and the thief would take over my life. I recon he just doesn’t fancy the thrill this story bears: e.g. that thief could be a much better cook than I am.

The dam broke when we needed gift vouchers at work for a newly father-to-be colleague and daringly I approached Amazon. Hubby and the rest of the world is ordering there – should be alright. I did it! Feeling like a child nicking a sweet at a candy store – thrill of the forbidden fruit! Nothing happened, no earthquake nor seven plagues coming upon us, except of an innocent email containing a number allowing redemption.

Bravely I subscribed for Race for Life all on my own, and sponsored my friends, and once I even ordered shoes – still from Amazon. I’m so relieved that they sell almost everything. I’m not ready to go beyond that yet. I have to attend regular private anti fraudster tuitions where weird things are explained to me. How do I miss the creepy bed time stories; now I’m supposed to really listen and to understand.

One thing got stuck, though! Never reveal your credit card details on the phone or in a pop-up window on the internet. Pop-ups are these little square things that ‘pop up’ unasked and which sometimes are really hard to get rid of. Apparently the fraudster creeps through the cable and shoves the pop-up around until your mouse curser accidentally hits a certain spot and then you lost and he won. I wonder how they become so thin to fit into my flat screen, normal dieting wouldn’t do the job…

However, the other day my credit card was rejected and later that day I was called by a friendly voice asking stuff about my attempted purchase, wanting to know the last three letters of my father’s name, claiming that this was needed to be able to identify that I was really me. You just called me on MY number for crying out loud.

Another thing I got was a pop-up from my bank asking to register my card for a security procedure. Ehh…? I didn’t know that banks keep special staff with an obligation to become thin enough to creep through cables.

I’m not kidding! During an online money transfer my bank sent me a pop-up asking for my card details to register it for further security procedures.

Since my bank’s customer service perfectly fits the fraudster’s fraud patterns, without them feeling awkward about it, I’m feeling much safer – And why shouldn’t I? My grandma who was a very wise woman always told me: ‘Child, these people do that as a profession, they learned the job and get paid for it. Wouldn’t it be arrogant to think that you know better?’