I cry, I weep, I gnash my teeth. Some\nflame-headed goat poop sniffing slime licker (or maybe lickers) stole\nfrom me. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There I was, minding my own business,\ngoing to Walmart because the local Meijer removed 8 O’Clock coffee\n(in the big bags) from their shelves. I really don’t like to go to\nWalmart, because they have a history of treating their employees\nrather badly. Not sure if that has changed over the years but the\nwhole premise is indelibly burned into my brain cells and so I would\nrather not support them, thank you very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So… as I was saying … there I was\nminding my own business, with my Beautiful Girlfriend, buying my\ncoffee at Walmart, and thinking, \u201cyay!! We scored 4 big bags of 8\nO’Clock coffee!! Enough for several weeks!! This is most marvelous\nindeed!\u201d We happily put the bags of coffee in the pantry and sang\nsongs of caffeinated joy. Well OK maybe not. But we were glad to\nget our stash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I used a debit card for the purchase,\nwhich I do quite often. I rarely carry cash, you see. This is due\nto a strange phenomenon called spontaneous wallet depletion. In\nother words, in the \u201cgood old days\u201d before debit cards, my cash\nseemed to disappear pretty quickly. Not sure if using the debit card\nchanged that, but at least now I’m able to keep track of where the\nmoney goes a bit more easily. I get online regularly and check to\nmake sure all is well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, this time I didn’t check for\nseveral days; and my checking account shrank by an extra $317 over\nthe course of about a week. Very shortly after I used my debit card\nat Walmart; someone somewhere somehow hacked something and started\nusing my debit card info at a Walmart in Elk Grove, Illinois; which\nis a bit over 200 miles from here. Little nibbles… $35 here,\n$35.36 there… carefully staying under $50 which I guess is a\nthreshold that starts to raise flags. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was not very happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dunno what it is about Walmart, but a\nsimilar fraud thing happened to me with my credit card after making a\npurchase at Walmart.com ! Very cool indeed, right?? I lost the use\nof my card for a little over a week after reporting it stolen. At\nleast I had the debit card. Now I’ve lost the use of a debit card\nfor 7 to 10 days, but at least I have a credit card. Fortunately,\nour credit union took care of all the fraud and even refilled my\nchecking account with the amount that was stolen. I’ve since learned\nof an app called CardValet; which apparently can stop this. Once the\nnew debit card arrives, I’ll enter it into the app, and when I’m not\nusing it, I can use CardValet to turn the card off. I guess it works\nwith credit cards too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guess what? For the time being, I’m\ncarrying cash again. And no, I’m not paranoid about using electronic\npayments; but you can bet I’ll be using the CardValet app regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh and by the way, regarding the\ncyberthieves: not only are they flame-headed goat poop sniffing\nslime lickers, but they also pee themselves in public places but just\nsit there with a silly grin. I’m sure they also enjoy eating other\npeople’s boogers; and I would also not be surprised if they smear dog\nsnot on their eyebrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are not my friends. Time to call Superman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n