I found out on Friday night that someone stole my debit card number and bought something online for almost $500! I'm SICK!!! And because we didn't have that much in our account, now we have overdraft fees! The bank says we have to "dispute" the charge. Has this happened to anyone? Is it easily taken care of or will this be a fight! Wish I knew who did this to us!

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Well that really sucks!! I have never had that happen (don't have a debit card), but I hope it is easily taken care of for you and the fees are all dropped!!!

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~Happiness is a large family~

You have to dispute it. It's not a big fight. But first, call the bank and lock the account and set up a fraud alert with the credit bureaus. Also, file a police complaint - this is very important. This has not happened to us, but at one point, I misplaced my purse and thought it was lost and did all that.

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And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Phil:4:7

Unfortunately this has happened to us. Both with dh's debit card and mine. We always got our money back but it did take some paperwork and time. If you have overdraft charges because of this be sure and ask the bank to reimburse you for those.

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~Missy~

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live !!!

I was already thinking about using cash for everything! This does it for me!!!

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Someone messed around with my husband's paypal account once, but luckily Paypal caught it right away. I agree with Christy's mom you need to file a police complaint, too.

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Wendy~Self-proclaimed hippie momma to Bob and Jamie

Card numbers are easily available for falsification overseas, and yes this happened to us. They had a shopping trip in Cebu, Philippines with our hard earned money, but this was easier to justify since we were both using our cards here and in the same day the Cebu transactions kicked in. Our bank was excellent about this matter and quickly cancelled both of our cards and deposited the funds back within a day. They did have to send me paperwork in regards to this, a few simple questions and I just faxed them back. Hope your bank helps you out and fixes this matter promptly

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You must be the change you want to see in the world ~ Gandhi

This did happen to me when I was stationed in Germany. I didn't use that account very often and went to the bank to withdraw some money and they said I only had 59 cents in the account. I was missing over $1000! I filled a dispute and had my money back in a week or 2. I was lucky this was not my main account. Whoever got the number to my account had just started buying the stuff the night before and there was other things pending. It was crazy and it does make you feel lousy.

File a dispute and a police report. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

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Yikes! So sorry that happened. I know the feeling and it made me nervous and sick to my stomach for several days!

I've had it happen with both debit cards and checks. In the case of the debit card a local merchant was scanning the cards through a special reading machine and then selling the numbers along with the pin numbers to a crime ring. Oh yay! They went straight for the cash at the ATM as they had the pin # to go with it.

We've worked at maintaining a close relationship with our local bank. Even though it is a major bank we consistently go to the little branch in our local grocery store. I can walk in and cash any check any day without ID. As a result, they put our money back the next day and it was a rather easy process to close the account and get new debit cards.

The check fraud happened a few years ago after someone stole my checkbook. That took a long time to sort out as they used my checks at lots of different grocery stores. I received calls and letters for those for about a year afterwards. I think handling the debit card issue was much easier than the check fraud.

I hope you are able to sort everything out soon, follow all the instructions particularly if you have to file a police report. The bank should definitely refund the service fees, if not I would yank my money out there as soon as everything is settled.

Good luck@

I'm sorry this happened to you. I hear so much of that stuff that it's turned me off to ever getting a debit card.

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"