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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Bank Account Fraud

Well yesterday was a long day. I went to the bank and spoke with a teller about what happened to my account. Money being taken out of my LOC and put into another account that I did not create in order to pay paypal and not my paypal account. She was really nice and helpful, we highlighted the transactions that were not mine and she froze all the accounts. Then she had to see her supervisor about what to do next to dispute the money paid to paypal.

The supervisor came over and questioned me about things, very accusingly and said she would be back once she talked to the head office. The teller and I chatted more just about things while we waited.

Finally she comes back and tells me what is going to happen but keeps saying I am the one that opened up the new account and that I am the one who transferred money from the LOC. When I told her it wasn't me that was doing that she started accusing me even more saying that I must have given out my SIN, my pin, my online password, and my driver's licence because they had it all otherwise they wouldn't have been able to do what they did. I kept saying I have never done that. My eyes were filling up with tears at this point from her tone and accusations.

The supervisor leaves and the teller tries to chit chat with me about something and I couldn't help but start crying. The teller gives me a tissue and takes me to the bathroom in the back and tells me to take my time and come out when I'm ready. Well that was embarrassing walking past all the customers and employers with tears running down.

I come back out and the teller takes me to another lady who was so much nicer and got things all figured out. She created a new bank account for me and closed all the other ones. She helped me fax equifax and looked into them herself and said that nothing weird looks like it has taken place. She got me a new debit card with a new pin. While she was doing this the teller and the supervisor were reversing what happened with that account I did not open to pay back my LOC and then add what was taken from paypal.

The supervisor came in several times when I was with the other lady and was super nice to me. I think the teller must have told her that she upset me or something because she was overly nice. Anyway it all seems to have worked out now. I cannot take out money today and I have to contact my employers who use direct deposit and send them a new void cheque for this new bank account. Also I will have to contact ING and tell them to link my account with them to this new bank account. Then I will also have to set up my bill payments online again.

It's a lot of work. The one lady also said that I should seriously consider applying for a new SIN number because it looks like my identity has been stolen. I am going to look into that soon too I guess.

Seems like the branch and the head office are both confused as to how this has happened. Which is not helpful to me since I have no idea what I did either to make this happen. I would really like to know if I did something wrong so that I can ensure this does not happen again.

The one bank lady told me that I should erase my history and cookies before and after I log into my banking website. I think I will start to do that now just in case. Might be good advice for the rest of you as well. I do not want this to ever happen again!!

8 comments:

  1. that's horrible. horrible! If your identity has been stolen is this something you should report to the police? (I don't really know how all this works). Oh, I think I remember Gail Vaz-Oxlade having a blog about what to do if your identity is stolen. You should check that out.

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  2. OMG! That's terrible. I'm so sorry this happened :( I hope it gets sorted out quickly.

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  3. Yeah if it was a true stolen identity I would think about talking to the police. THis person has probably done it to many ppl. Also I agree with you that I would be frustrated not knowing how it happened as well. I mean you would want to know if there was something you did that you shouldnt have done.

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  4. I,m so glad you managed to get all your money back, that Supervisor seems like she needs to learn some people skills. I think this should be a lesson to us all as I had one of my workmates tell me only yesterday that, his bank had notified him of some strange Paypal transactions coming out of his account, they were frozen almost immediately. But I,m thinking are Paypal a secure enough site that we should have our banking details there, I,m thinking of closing my account down.

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  5. I'm so sorry this happened to you. How frightening (not to mention annoying as hell) I agree with TFC, if this is an identity theft issue - which it sounds like it is - you should definitely get the police involved.

    Glad you got your money back though.

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  6. oh my gosh. that's horrible. I'm glad you were able to get that sorted. Keep an eye out on your credit history... for anything being opened and wahtnot. How scary!

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  7. This is a good example of why you might want to consider using an identity theft protection service like Lifelock. http://www.lifelock.com/landing/real/safe . They are currently offering 10% off if you use promo code SAFEID1. Hope this helps.

    I 'm also a contracted representative of LifeLock, so if you have any questions about thier identity theft protection services, let me know.

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