Xblog

So, tonight I was robbed. At gun point. Fortunately I was not physically harmed, and all that was stolen was my wallet. I was robbed right outside my house which is more than a bit frightening. I don’t much want to go through the details of the incident itself as I haven’t really been able to digest it yet. Indeed, while the whole thing was going on, I was thinking to myself: “I have a gun pointed at me, and I know this is a really dangerous situation and I could die if things go sideways, but I really can’t process that fact right now. Right now I need to focus on remaining calm, not doing anything to surprise or agitate this guy, and giving him my wallet.” I still haven’t really processed the “you could die right now” or the “this really drives home just how vulnerable we all are” aspect of it.

What I have had a wonderful chance to experience is the joy of trying to report all your credit cards, bank cards, etc. are stolen. I think I was able to remember most of what was in my wallet, but that was where the fun started. Without exception, every credit card company I called put me on hold, typically for 5 minutes, once as long as 15 minutes. Just finding the numbers to call was a PITA in a lot of cases. Sure there are numbers on the back of your card, but are their numbers on the company website? Not really. Searching on “stolen card” on the company website wasn’t too useful either. The “contact us” links frequently didn’t have a 24hr number to call to report a lost or stolen card. A lot of the companies I ended up contacting through automated services that first wanted… my card number (hmm… let me get it out of my wallet here… oh yeah, I don’t have that because it was stolen!!!). Eventually I was able to navigate to all of them except my HELOC. Get this: my HELOC card apparently does NOT have a 24hr number I can call to report a lost or stolen card. My ATM card, and my credit card (both with the same company) do, but my HELOC card, which is tied to a MUCH larger credit line than anything else, doesn’t. WTF?

What I don’t get is why there isn’t a button somewhere on all these websites where I can just deactivate my card online. It would save the credit card companies a lot of money in customer service time, and it doesn’t seem nearly as likely to be subject to abuse as most anything else you can do already on these web sites.