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Monday, April 6, 2009

Craptastic Past 3 Days

So, this post has nothing to do with anything other than how absolutely crappy my weekend/Monday turned out to be.

Saturday was without note (other than I had a B-day party I wanted to go to, but couldn't get it together enough to leave the house).
Sunday was the day I was going to do my taxes, so I spent close to 30 minutes looking for my W-2 only to finally call my father who apparently got it sent to him instead..... (frustrating).
Then, Bluejay and I were going to go grocery shopping. I've been perilously close to overdrawing my bank account so I checked before leaving.
What greeted my eyes when I checked was somehow simultaneously having -300 dollars as a "balance" but in my transaction area having a surplus of enough to cover rent and bills.
So, I called up my bank thinking that it was some minor website glitch. Only when I had to enter my card number, I couldn't find the card.
Now this is suspect, since I am fanatical about putting my cards in the same place every time in my wallet, and then putting my wallet in the same place every time in my pants, and then always putting my pants on before leaving the house (what can I say, I'm a creature of habit), and immediately upon exiting any building, I check all pockets for their respective contents (wallet in back right, keys in front left, cell phone in front right, handkerchief in back left).
I frantically figured out my number and got to talk to a living person at my bank, who calmly explained to me how it's totally possible for me to have both a negative and positive account balance. He starts saying: "yeah, see when you went to [insert crappy department store here] and spent 100+ dollars, and then [insert 15 more stores here] and spent multiple hundreds more, you had a deficit of 300 dollars".

Around about when he started listing all the stores I've never even heard of, I started panicking. Suddenly I had to wonder if I was having breaks from reality and was going on a spending spree. They asked me when I might have "lost" my card, and my first thought was when I was in the bank (where I live), but then Bluejay (genius, intelligent, lovely Bluejay) thought to have me ask them where all these purchases were being made.

Turns out, one of the patrons/residents at my job swiped my debit cards from my wallet from my backpack, from behind my desk,..... while I was briefly out of the room. I know this, because almost all of the purchases were made in the town where my job is.

I immediately went into damage control: I asked them to cancel my card, asked whether I'd be charged for the overdraft fees (of which there will be many) found out that I WILL be charged, but, oh hey, if they investigate and decide that I DIDN'T spend the money, then I'll get it all back, additionally found out that they won't start any damn investigation for at least a couple days because "the amount has been deducted from your account but it hasn't yet been POSTED", realized that since whoever did this also saw my credit card (even though it wasn't taken) that I needed to call my CREDIT people, had to stop my old card, realized that my bill was due in literally days and there was no way I was going to be able to pay it, had to call my landlord (since they hadn't deposited my rent yet) and hope that someone heard my message on monday before they cashed my check, called the police (in the town where I work), got told that they'd take my statement monday, finally went to my parents house, called the police again (mistakenly thinking that maybe since they'd interupted me last time, they hadn't heard enough) got interupted again and told that "if it really mattered to you, you'd have come in the second it happened" told off the police (I know, stupid) saying: "EXCUSE ME, I found out 20 minutes ago" followed by some inarticulate griping about how a thousand dollars is important and does matter to me, and how could you think that it doesn't matter to me, and that is my RENT, and argh (and hung up).
Today I: got a new bank account, called my landlord again, deposited a loaner check from my parents (into said new account), found out that the person who used my card used it less than an hour after I got in to work, went to one of the stores and asked them to save the video from that day, called the police, called them BACK when they didn't actually send an officer, realized that it had to have been only one of the patrons, went to the store (with the police officer) and found out that the tape doesn't have anyone I recognize at all!!!!

ARGH.

Now I'm just about certain that I know who stole my cards, but I can't do ANYTHING to them, since we don't have them on tape making any purchases. I'm sure I could go to multiple other stores they shopped in to get a picture with better quality (and hope somehow I do recognize the person), other than those stores won't show me the footage probably unless the police are accompanying me, and they aren't going to want to do that.


Half the time I wish I could have caught them and they could go to jail and I could feel safe again, half the time I realize that it's a fucked up world and that I'm never safe and so it's silly to think that would help, and the third half of the time I think about how screwed up the legal system is, and how I generally view it as racist and classist, and wish that I didn't want it to protect me, why didn't it protect me, fucking hell, just protect me! Since I'm of the opinion that it directly hurts those most oppressed in our society anyway, and most protects those who already have privilege.



I'm tired and scared, I feel violated and confused (how could they do this to me? I didn't realize that someone here could hate me that much) and I'm at work for another hour.

2 comments:

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