Thursday, April 15, 2010

WHAM BAM, I'M THE FRAUDSTER FIGHTING (wo)MAN!

I was the victim of internet fraud.
I've always thought that I was FAR too smart for that. I don't give my account details away in order to inherit a wealthy Nigerian King's fortune, or sign up to some program to build my muscles up in 2 weeks. How wrong I was.

So, my mum gave me this amazing antioxidant powder which makes colds/the flu or any other winter-related illness go away a snap. After last winter depleted my stock I decided to be a BIG GUURRL and buy some of the interwebs. I found a product that seemed the same, full of powder that looks violet and blueberry and is a great for the immune system. Popped in my credit/debit mastercard deets and voila, I should receive a package in 2-3 business days.

But
it
didn't.

After two months (mid-February) I'm noticing I seem to be running out of money week to week, when I'm usually pretty good at counting and saving my dosh.
I thought it was because I'd just moved house and I was buying those essential new-house items (scourers, bins, etc). But a few weeks later I notices my 'available balance' had gone down considerably - by $130.
After a few days, the whole balance was down by the same amount and there was a debit, with some random arrangement of numbers as the detail (OOOBB333187774420 for example).
"FUUUUUCKCKCKCKCKCKCKKKKKKK!!" was my immediate reaction and searching my brain for what in the world it could be.
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And then it clicked.
At first I felt like the biggest dickhead.
Antioxidant powder? Testimonials? Pictures of people holding newspapers? Flashing lights/images/ads?!
SERIOUSLY.
GODDAMNIT.
WHY THE HELL DID I GIVE OUT MY CREDIT CARD DETAILS!>>!>>!>!<?!

What to do? I don't want to let everyone know how idiotic I was, how naive I was.
I am the dumbass victim. ah. AH.

If I called my bank, the person at the end of the like was sure to be thinking something along the lines of "kids these days and their internet! ha, I'm soooo much less fraudable than them" with the icing on the cake being a resounding and condescending belly laugh from the receiver of my mobile.

But I sucked it in.
I called.
Yelled "OPERATOR" a few times.
Got onto someone.
Thank god the lovely woman at the Commonwealth Bank had a far too high pitched vocal chords to belly laugh.
She empathised with my lack of finances (remember, she could see my bank account) and how I was doing it tough, living in a different state to my parents, without KRUDD to help me out. She consoled my desperation, saying that they would look into it all and try to get back the total of $300 dollars taken from my bank account. She was going to cancel my card and send me a new one at that very second.
I bet she licked the envelope.
I think I actually loved the Commonwealth Bank after that afternoon.

But I love them even more now as I have been fully reinstated with all the lost money.
I intend on buying something big and expensive.
Or getting really drunk on expensive liquor.

Any suggestions?
Anyone else as gullible as I am?




2 comments:

  1. Yeah, Matt was considering buying these sunnies off ebay and about 5 minutes later we realised it was a scammer.

    Oh I guess that's not that similar.

    In the sense that he didn't get scammed.

    ReplyDelete