It happened to us this week. (On both blogs on purpose).
First, I freely admit I am anal, as I told my students today, some people use a blowdryer, I use Chase. And some other accounts.
Every day I take a shower, every day, after the shower, I sit down with the accounts and check them. Every single one — it’s not that hard with Quicken, but I check every account that we have setup on line, including my cell phone account. Anything, anyone could tamper with.
Yesterday, a check went through for approximately $127.00 I realized pretty quickly I hadn’t written a check for that amount, but waited for a day to verify it, since the image was not available.
Someone created at least three checks, with my husband’s name, his DL (which even I don’t have at my finger tips), my name, my DL, and our address. Of course, I don’t put the DL’s printed on the check. I also can’t write as legible as the forger.
It’s been fun. I had to close our checking account and I had to provide a list of known transactions (and darn, I should have pulled that before I left the house, I had to come back and get it).
I also put a fraud alert on our credit accounts.
My husband is happy. Everyone whose heard the story realizes that they wouldn’t have caught the problem as quickly as I did, or gotten it resolved as quickly.
It pays to be anal.