Credit, credit, and there it goes...

I live by my credit card. I very rarely carry cash; an issue my mother always had with me. A credit card is just so simple. Whip it out, swipe, sign, pocket, and you're out the door. At the end of the month my bill comes and my husband can then see all of the places I have been. It has worked well for us and our credit card company even spells out in nice, tidy, little columns what we have spent in categories such as food and clothing.

Several months ago my husband put an alert on our card so that every time we went over a certain amount he would get an email. He did this because of a conversation with a co-worker about hacked cards. It was slightly annoying because my husband would then ask me what I had been doing at such and such place spending such and such amount of money. That ended when he did this in front of my daughter after I had purchased a birthday gift for her. Oops. Cat out of the bag there. Turns out he got the last laugh because during the Christmas season last year while I was in line at Target with a cart full of gifts he called me to ask if I had been in Naples, FL. (Seriously, he does ask me things like that)

We had been hacked and my credit card company, knowing that I was out spending money in my area and couldn't possibly be in Naples, FL (unlike my husband) called to question the charge. My husband, who had received the email of spending, but had no idea it was an out of town charge, spoke with the card's Fraud Department and canceled the card while I was in line with a cart full of Christmas cards. I called him a Grinch. Luckily I was carrying a back up. The new card came in a week, and I gave a lot of sad faces to relatives visiting for the holiday when they invited me out to eat. They took pity on me and paid my bill.

Fast forward to this month. It was a Sunday and all four of us were home. Madison and Tom were getting ready to head out the door to go bowling, (Tom's new exercise to spend time with his soon college bound kid) when he suddenly stopped and asked (I kid you not), "Did you spend $254.62 at a restaurant today?" I am so use to this type of question from him that it doesn't even phase me and I responded in the negative. Hacked again.

He immediately called the credit card company and told them, "Call the restaurant and tell them to hold this person." The credit card lady (and I) knew that once someone pays a bill he hightails it out of the restaurant and she ignored this statement and connected him to the Fraud Department. He tried his scenario again with this department, and getting frustrated at her not jumping on his suggestion, ordered Maddy to look up the restaurant which the credit woman told him was in a city several miles away. She did and she dialed the number and my husband stood with two phones on speaker, one phone connected to the credit card fraud department, the other with the restaurant. Of course the couple, two men, had left already having had their fill of free seafood and drinks. The hostess freaked out and called her boss. The boss, who was out of town, shrugged and reminded the hostess that the restaurant had cameras. He would deal with it on Tuesday. The Fraud Department closed the account and ordered up a new card. Tom hung up both phones.

At this point, hearing about the cameras, I jumped in. I am miss crime watcher, reader, and player. Cameras meant that we could run these yahoos through facial recognition...something my husband managed in his line of work! The bastards would go down! Tom got excited at the thought and went in to work the next day meeting with the Economic Crime Unit. Of course, bureaucracy is full of holes and nonsense and my husband has no patience. When he found himself in the same town this week taking a class he went to the restaurant and secured the video. It will be turned over on Monday to the crime unit. He didn't feel I was experienced enough to take it further. Whatever.

Then about two days after the credit card hacking we discovered that our debit card had been hacked too. Somewhere where I use a card and where Tom uses a card we had been swiped. I want to catch these two yahoos just to find out where this happened. Three times in less than three months? Some merchant is about to lose my business. Suddenly now I'm thinking we need to start hiding our money under the mattress.

Tom and the bank worked together to change accounts and while that was going on I made due with what I had in my cabinets. I alternated driving my two cars until finally I had to use the back-up card to fill one with gas. When my kids asked to go to Starbucks, to go to dinner, to go to the grocery, to go anywhere where there was better food than what we had at home, I reminded them we had no way to pay for it. My mother would be rolling in her grave (if she were in one) at that, but I kind of liked having no real responsibility when it came to making meals and shopping. That lasted until about day five and then I broke down and used my own card to get some food (while they were at school). It was a long week.

I'm not sure what we will do from now on. We are nervous about handing over our cards to anyone now. We want to be the one to do the swiping, but even that isn't all that secure. I keep nagging the girls to come up with a solution that will solve the problem for the world and make some serious money, but they feel they are too busy with school. I'm definitely carrying some back-up cash now (love you mom) and we have filed for extra protection. As annoyed as I get when my husband inquires about my purchases, I do see now that it is important to stay on top of things when it comes to credit cards. We definitely communicate with one another more now too.

Me texting: "Hey! The new credit card just came and I activated it. The girls and I are headed to the mall!!"

Tom texting: "OMG!"