This weekend I had the pleasure of driving up through Virginia and then on to Delaware to attend my cousin’s wedding. It was a delightful wedding set at Winterthur, the gorgeous estate home built by the du Pont family. While I did not take a tour, I’ve heard it rival’s NC’s own Biltmore Estate which I have been to and it is GORGEOUS. My sister and I stayed together at a nearby AirBnB which was not too far from the wedding location, and it was a fun, if tiring, weekend.
On the way home yesterday (a long day made longer by the time change – we were both up VERY early and made it back to her place by 8:30 a.m.). I then met up with my friend LP for a bit before heading home. I had a full tank of gas and felt comfortable that I’d be able to get home on the whole tank. However, as I hit the Charlotte metro area, I hit some traffic that caused my MPG to drop from a hefty 30 mpg to something much, much lower. The result is that my remaining gas was used up quickly and my needle gauge took a dive – I’d need to get some gas.
I was on I-85S and exited somewhere near the Kannapolis area. The gas station was just off the highway and every pump was being used so it was clearly a popular place to get gas. As I am wont to do, before I inserted my debit card, I checked the unit to make sure it was legit. I do that every single time I get gas. The card reader moved a hair, but not as bad as some I’ve experienced (those make me find another gas station entirely), so I decided to go ahead and get a few bucks of gas – just enough to get home.
A couple hours after I arrived home I logged into my bank account to see if my paycheck had been deposited, and found a $699.30 charge to the Hunt Club Village with a Utah phone number. The charge was made right after I used my card at the gas station. After a brief check online, it turns out that the phone number is tied to a group in Utah that claims to be a property management company, and pays rent for people. And apparently someone at Hunt Club Village (which is actually in Columbia, SC) was going to use my money to pay their rent.
The timing of the charge could have been coincidental – they may have gotten my number elsewhere and just waited until last night to use it. But either way, it makes me mad that I had to call my bank to cancel the card and request a replacement, and that I have to reassign all of my autopay accounts. And now feel like I need to monitor everything for the next couple months just in case the thieves have more than just the one of my card numbers in their possession.
Skimmers make the case for going cash-only though, don’t they?
