Security Warning

Have you seen the Visa commercial with the woman shopping and she says Visa called her husband because there were suspicious charges on their card from France, but meanwhile, she was shopping up a storm in Paris? I think the marketing department tested this commercial on people who believe in God, or alternatively, Visa. Visa, it turns out, doesn't really care about cardholder security, and they apparently only check on suspicious charges when they're legitimate.

I recently discovered some suspicious charges on my credit card statement from AOL, which may or may not be from another country--Visa told me that there is no way to tell. I called AOL to see what they could be for, as no person should pay them for services every other company provides for free. Anyhow, an account was started with a username kind of like my name, but definitely not by me. This made me worried. They assured me that they would deactivate the account and send me some sort of affidavit in the mail. I called my credit card company to tell them about the scandal, and they said "ok." They only had the name of the vendor and the date of the charge on file.
So I said: can you find out where the charge originated from? Like, was it from another country, because I was traveling during this time and am concerned that someone at the Buenos Aires airport has my credit card number.
Visa: Nope, we can't tell any of that.
Me: Don’t you have some kind of fraud department that deals with unauthorized charges, or oh, I don’t know, stolen identities?
Visa: No, no, you have to call the vendor directly. We can’t do anything.

I am not kidding you. Those commercials are a steamy pile of crap.

So, back to AOL, who reiterated that they are sending me an affidavit so I won’t have to pay the $9.95 I was charged.
Me: I’m not so much concerned about the $9.95, I’m more concerned that someone has stolen my credit card and/or identity, and just want to know where the purchase originated from. Don’t you keep track of purchaser’s IP addresses?
AOL: No. We are sending the affidavit and that’s all we can do.
Me: First of all, you’re an Internet company.
AOL: Yep.
Me: But you can’t tell me where the purchase came from?
AOL: Right.
Me: Can you tell me the phone number listed on my account?
AOL: No. Mumbling somethings about security.
Me: Umm, but it's my account. Are you effin kidding me?
AOL: Nope, not kidding. They literally start yelling about the affidavit.
I hang up.

Scalia is the only person who cares about your security. Don't forget it.