Today is going to be a busy one for me - my friend Dallas invited me to watch the Vancouver Canucks play against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. It's not often that I get the chance to go see an NHL game, so of course I jumped at the chance. What makes it even better is that Vancouver is playing well right now. Even with defenceman Ballard out with a strained knee I remain hopeful that they can win against Anaheim.
Oh yeah - I had to call VISA yesterday to inquire about some suspicious looking charges on my statement. At first I thought they were related to my cell phone but as it turned out they were completely fraudulent and not related at all. I happened to have recently installed a banking application on my iPhone and this lets me easily log in and examine things like my banking statements and transaction history. It's amazing to me how many things like duplicate charges, etc. go through unchecked, especially since that is one thing that is pretty easy to flag for further inspection. It seems we aren't quite there yet though which is why I was the first to discover two identical charges of about $230 each against my credit card. This was something that immediately stood out to me and I decided to look into it.
As a side note, if the perpetrator had only posted the one charge, I would most likely ignored it completely, assuming it was a valid charge for something else. It was only because they posted the charge twice on the same day. Sometimes I'm aided by the stupidity (and greed) of others, I guess.
Anyhow, after a series of calls both to VISA and to my cell phone provider I start to gather the needed information to determine these charges were in fact false. Both companies were very adept at handling this and one representative at VISA, an energetic man named Adam had a very clear understanding of these situations in general and was able to give me helpful tips on what exactly to look for to determine if I was dealing with a fraud case or not. His tips helped to speed this process to resolution.
But yeah - tonight, hockey game. Tomorrow, take delivery of a new stove. I figure there will be a sleep debt to be repaid this weekend.
