I'm now a member of the senior citizen who was scammed club
You hear their stories on the ten pm news. Elderly man/woman gets a call from a stranger. They get pitched a deal that sounds good...in fact too good, to be true. They give out all their personal information. The next thing you know, their bank account is cleared out. Their life savings is gone. When you hear it, you always wonder how could that have happened? Didn't they know better? You think this will never happen to you. You're too smart to let it happen to you.
And then it does!
My story is a little different. I'm not even sure I did it to myself, although it is possible. It's also not nearly as tragic as the ones that make you shake your head. I didn't lose anywhere close to the amount of money that leaves people destitute, but it was enough to shake me up for an hour.
Here is the backstory: I'm a recipient of medicaid and snap. Every year you have to recertify in order to keep receiving it for another year. My due date was in May. It's a fairly simple process. You go into an office, fill out some paperwork, they do a quick check in their system, see if you qualify and if you do, you're good to go. See you next year. The problem for 2020 is the government offices are closed. Covid-19 pandemic!
I couldn't get through on their website. It was good for new applicants, nothing for returning people who needed to recertify. I called the office phone number. Voice Mail! I left a message but didn't hear from anyone. I guessed they weren't checking their voice mail. After awhile, I gave up and figured I'd deal with it when the world got back to somewhat normal and the government offices reopened. But then I received an email from The Department of Human Services. It looked official. They said they were working on a backlog of cases. If you want to expedite this, give us your name, address and social security number and we'll forward it to your local office.
Sounds good to me. I replied with the information. About a minute after hitting send, I had second thoughts. You always hear so and so will never ask for your social security number...yada, yada, yada...and yet I sent it to them through an email. SCHMUCK!!!
About a week later, I get a call from the Department of Human Services telling me that all pending cases have been extended through the end of November due to the pandemic. Phew! But that call reminded me about the email asking for my personal information. Sigh!
Weeks pass by...nothing suspicious. Just normal activity on my account. And then came Saturday.
I was thinking of making a couple of purchases, so I decided to check the balance on my debit card account. BUZZ!!!!!!!! The balance was quite a bit less than what I knew should have been in there. I checked the transactions and there were four fairly huge ones in the last few days. So I was transferred to their customer service department and was told that someone in Moscow...Russia, not Idaho.....had withdrawn money to a Pink Card account. I told the rep that I didn't know anyone in Moscow...I held off on making any Trump/Putin/Mike Flynn comments....and he sent me to claims department.
After being on hold for about half hour, someone came on the line and we went through this story. She told me I was the third person today to have this issue. We put a hold on the account. They'll send me a new card. I'll file a claim for the stolen funds and in thirty to ninety days the money should be returned. Probable happy ending!
Honestly, I have no idea if it was my fault for giving out that information. Knowing that three others were hit on the same days makes me feel like it wasn't and does make me feel a little better. I would feel much better if it really was Trump/Putin /Mike Flynn who stole my money. But still, I'm beating myself up somewhat because I know I shouldn't have given out that information and did it anyways. Dumb!
I have a feeling that this story hasn't quite reached the end. Even though I'll have a new card, the people who did this still have my information. It may only be a matter of time before they do this again. It could be like the house that gets robbed, the crooks wait for the people who were robbed to repurchase the items that were stolen, and then rob them again. I guess it's just as possible that this was a one time thing and life will go back to normal. Let's hope for that, but we'll just have to wait and see. I know that I'll have to do daily checks on my account, just to be sure. Oh well...like everything else in 2020, better to be safe than to be sorry, right?!
So what's the lesson we've learned from this tale of could be worse woe? It's simple: DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO STRANGERS!! I knew it before the events of this weekend. I just received a reminder.
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