I am not a fan of the $700 billion bail out plan and knowing that the money could buy 2,000 McDonald’s apple pies for every US citizen does not make me understand the logic any further. It does make me hungry, though.

How ridiculous.

One week after Chase nabbed $87 in mistakenly deposited funds and $57 in insufficient fees from my account with no warning, I received a letter (dated the day they took the funds) that they would be taking the funds. A lot of good that did me. Good thing I didn’t need any car parts, cause Chase took all the money I had until payday!

Since I opened my first bank account in 1997, I have never once bounced a check, overdrafted an account, or incurred any unnecessary fees. That all changed this week when Chase hit me with a $25 insufficient funds fee on Monday and a $32 insufficient funds free on Tuesday.

When my credit card was stolen, the bank credited me twice for the unknown charge. I made a note to leave the money aside, but when I checked my balance last week, I forgot and used the extra money to pay a bill. The next day, Chase decided they wanted their money back, which put me into the negative for two days.

I realize it’s my fault for not keeping that money set aside, but I have to be pissed at Chase for taking the money back without any sort of warning. The reason I was in the situation in the first place was because my credit card was stolen, it would have been nice to have a little understanding from the bank, and maybe a note saying “hey, we credited you too much money, we apologize for any inconvenice, but we’re going to take it back on Monday.”

I’m also completely stunned that Chase charges an increasing fee per day for insufficient funds. If I hadn’t checked my account online, it would have been overdrawn for two more days, until I had been paid. I’m sure others who never check their accounts online have gone much longer without realizing they were overdrawn. They have enough time and resources to solicite me for credit cards and CDs every day, but they don’t have the resources to make an automated call or send an email letting me know my account is in the red.

I called customer service and complained, but it fell on deaf ears. Has anyone ever had any luck reversing fees in a similar situation? Is a letter going to do any good?

Another day, another credit card number stolen.

This time, it was a $10 charge on a Chase Visa that I didn’t recognize. Someone could be purchasing Cat5e patch cable‘s for all I know, and I only catch the charges because I am diligent about double checking my statements.

I’m wondering, since this is the second Chase number to be stolen in as many weeks, if my entire Chase credit identity has been stolen. The representative I spoke with brushed off that notion, but I don’t think it’s all that far-fetched considering this second stolen number was one I haven’t used in almost six months.

So, how long till I find the next unauthorized charge? Two weeks? A month? Or is it all over?

I always thought I did a good job of keeping my personal information under wraps, but as of Thursday, I’m officially a victim of credit card theft.

I’m one of those anal people that checks my bank account every morning to see what cleared, and noticed a PayPal transaction for $87.82. I then logged into PayPal and saw that there was no record of the purchase. Usually if something hits my checking account marked PayPal, it means that I didn’t have enough money in my PayPal account and portion was taken out of each account. Not so in this case.

PayPal didn’t have any record of the purchase initially, but after searching through their records by my cell phone number, they pulled up the original purchase, which was in Euros. The thief could have been buying horse supplements for all I know, because I had never heard of the company and I certainly didn’t purchase anything in Euros, and how the purchase bypassed PayPal and went straight to my checking, no one knows.

Anyway, both PayPal and my bank were very helpful. My debit cards were cancelled and both have sent the issue to claims and I should have the money refunded by Tuesday.

Now to figure out what I did, or didn’t, do that put my information at risk!

Identity theft is such a huge problem in the United States that many people are turning to Life Lock to help manage their credit accounts by setting account alerts with the major credit bureaus on behalf of the customer and working to opt-out of pre-approved credit offers.

While customers are relieved to have someone protecting their credit, major credit bureaus, like Experian, are not as thrilled, alleging that the current credit laws do not provide for a third party to place alerts on an account on someone else’s behalf.

Makes you wonder why Experian cares that customers have approved Life Lock to manage their accounts.

Turns out that Experian cares because they offer services similiar to Life Lock, are incurring costs associated with the alerts, such as mailing notices and providing free credit reports, and are losing the opportunity to sell customer’s contact information after they opt-out of offers.

Now, I agree that Experian has a case based on extraneous fraud alerts inflating their overhead costs while Life Lock collects the monthly fee from customers for performing somethin that the customers can do for free, but I also think that Experian’s major problem is that they feel they are losing business to a competitor they are catering to and lossing revenue from selling mailing lists.

Seems to me that Experian isn’t operating in the best interest of the consumer since they would not care if they weren’t losing something to Life Lock.

Looks like I may be receiving a $25 credit card refund. The class action suit against major credit card companies for over charging for overseas transactions has been settled, and credit card holders are elibible for a refund of $25 or more depending on when they traveled overseas and how much they spent.

I received the paperwork in the mail a few months back and completed the form on the website it directed me to. I was unsure if anything would come of it, but the letter was authentic (came from the right mailing address) and the website was legit (encrypted), so I hit submit.

The catch is that the deadline for filing claims is May 30 and refunds won’t arrive until the court makes its final approval, which could take months or even years.