I'm pretty broke right now, so I decided to log into my American bank to see how much money I had in that account. Much to my surprise, the balance is -$31.06. I quickly pull up the details, and see the second last transaction was a charge for $9.95 by Innovative Software TE. The most recent transaction being a $30 over draft fee, joy.
A couple quick points
- American bank cards are (generally) also either a Visa or Mastercard debit card.
- I basically never use it. I keep my money in my Canadian accounts where I can manage it
- Customer service won't talk to me because I'm in overdraft; I need to talk to the overdraft people before anyone else will take my call
- A quick Google on Innovative Software TE yields several posts, all fraud related
I'm left with a couple questions:
- Why didn't the anti-fraud mechanism all the credit card firms are touting these days catch this. It's obviously a common scam.
- Why wont customer service talk to people in overdraft (it just may resolve that overdraft situation)
- What sort of punitive damages will be assessed to Innovative Software TE? Can I bill them for my cell phone minutes?
Rest assured I won't take this lying down. I'm just frustrated at the moment. I check my credit card and debit card statements for my active accounts regularly, you should to (or go the extra mile and do the whole end of month comparison between receipts and statements).
I've been receiving his monthly Crypt-o-grams for quite a while now, and occasionally make the trek over to his blog just to try and get a little more up to date, I loved this quote from his post on Secure Flight News:
Remember what the no-fly list is. It's a list of people who are so dangerous that they can't be allowed to board an airplane under any circumstances, yet so innocent that they can't be arrested -- even under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act.
I was prompted to take a look at his blog today after reading this article about a nun who ended up on the list and needed to pull strings to fly in a timely manner (I was previously aware of his presence on the Secure Flight Privacy/IT Working Group). This, just now, reminded me of the story of a Veteran blocked from flying unless he checked his congressional medal of honor. Or, more recently (and outside the United States) a person being stopped, detained, etc. for basically nothing.
If you don't already read Schnier you should, even if you're not a technophile. Personal & National security has become a very hot topic, legislation in the US has already moved far faster than rational minds could keep up. Understanding the issues at hand, and the tradeoffs involved can only be a good thing.
With the assistance of alcahol, and while being bitter that the bar stopped serving, we decided to make a cafepress store: Non Blocking the landmark T-Shirt is:
If the shirt doesn't make any sense, don't worry about it. Just buy a couple!
Update:
New Design just added!
