Some woman got a hold of my checking account number and paid off a bunch of her bills, including some hefty cable bills, with my money. One of the charges was in the form of a check; the other two were payments directly from my checking account. I’ve called my bank to get the process of reversing those charges started, and I’ve notified every company she paid that she was using fraudulent information. From those calls I made to those utility companies, I’ve figured out her name and where she lives.
Now I’m wondering if I should press charges. It’s a fairly substantial sum of money (at least to me, because I’m poor).
i’m still just freaked out that someone could, just with my bank account and routing information, access my money so easily without any need for any additional verification, like ssn, mother’s maiden name, anything. the check resulted from one of those automated pay-by-phone things, and i guess those services don’t even ask a person to punch in the account number twice to make sure they’re not pulling from the wrong account. what kind of bullshit is that?? and i don’t even know how the comcast stuff went through… it was going out as an authorized direct bill, like my mutual funds and crap, and i had to sign some papers to allow that to happen…
so… lesson learned: don’t let your husband lose your personal check on BART. >:O
Funny, the same thing happened to my mom about a month ago. It was easy to notice because the person printed her own checks with my mom’s account number and used her own signature on them.
Whoa, she printed up her own checks with the number too? What ended up happening to that woman? I assume your mom closed her account?
Yea, her own checks. I’m not sure what happened to the woman. My mom had to file a police report before the bank would give her back the money. I assume if the police had enough information (there was a name and address on the cashed check) they would do something about it. My mom did close her account.
my sister actually had her savings account drained. somehow someone in the phillipines had gotten a hold of her account info was actually making rather hefty atm withdrawls. but the best part was talking to washington mutual who was convinced that she had been in the phillipines for all of those transactions.