Relative Something

A few days ago I wrote about the attempted fraud using my Wintervale credit card number, and how the bank had neglected to notify me. At the time I wrote that, I didn’t have all the facts. Well, I may have had some of them. I just forgot a pertinent detail.

Cyndie pointed out that she thought the bank did contact us, by way of her phone. She remembered it because she thought it weird at the time, that they called her to question use of my card.

She was visiting her parents in Florida when the call came, so she contacted me while I was at the day-job, a little confused over the details of the banks concern. She gave me a number to call, along with a case number for reference.

Given this additional detail, my fuzzy memory began to recollect snippets of the occasion. The fragments I dredged up led me to paint the picture thusly: I called and talked over the situation.

I do remember the feeling that nothing was amiss and my account was fine, which is probably why shortly after it happened, I forgot the call had even occurred.

Looking back now, it makes total sense that the problem I confirmed recently is related to that odd call in January.

Obviously, nothing was amiss with my account, except that my card wouldn’t work if I tried to use it. No transactions were ever approved, so I never saw anything suspicious on my monthly statements. Cyndie’s card continued to work just fine, and we carried on blissfully ignorant.

Yesterday, I received an email from an online forestry products retailer with this title: “Notice of Data Breach.”

Following an extensive eight week forensic examination, we have recently learned that the cyber attacks actually first occurred in December 2011. The forensic examination shows that beginning in December 2011, a person or persons without authorization accessed and possibly stole credit card information from our website belonging to our customers. The thief or thieves accessed our website remotely and overcame our firewall and security protections.

I did make a purchase at this site. This is where we bought our Swedish log splitter and a device that holds long branches for cutting logs with a chainsaw.

Their message went on to describe “…types of information stolen appears to include credit card numbers, cardholder names, CCV numbers, credit card expiration dates, addresses and phone numbers, email addresses, log- in and password” to their site.

Well, apparently they didn’t get my CCV number! That is why the multiple attempts didn’t go through, according to the person I spoke with at my bank.

I find it interesting that I was so quick to discount that anything was wrong back when I made the call in January to see why they were contacting us about our account. My Spidey sense™ was not tingling.

Maybe I wasn’t properly honed in on “the moment.”

Ya think?

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