Sunday, January 18, 2009

SHOW & TELL - IDENTITY THEFT

On Saturday, my parents, Kev & I drove to a neighboring state for a funeral. On the way there, I phoned a local florist and placed an order for a bouquet to be sent to the funeral home. The service was beautiful. Very sad, but beautiful. We drove back to my parents' house and slept, then returned to our little corner of the world this morning. As I snuggled in my office chair with my protein shake in hand, I saw the light on the answering machine flashing.

Message 1: Card services has placed a block on my credit/debit card because of some suspect charges. The automated voice asked me to please call to verify the charges and lift the block.

No problem. I figured the block was placed because the florist is roughly four hours from my home state. I'd just call and verify the charges were placed by me and get the block lifted.

Message 2: The florist called to say the charge didn't go through. The flowers would not be delivered.

I can handle the identity theft. It's happened to me before. A few years ago, someone in LA had used my social security number to create a utilities account. This time, someone got my credit card number, my address, my phone number, and who knows what else. They didn't charge much - just a few measly charges to an overnight printing service and some other places. Maybe a bit over a hundred dollars. No big deal. I can handle it. I'm pissed off and put out, but I can handle it.

But the thing that makes me LIVID right now is the fact that my cousin, his son, the 14, and 17 year old children of the deceased never received the flowers from my family. They've been through so much the past few months, and the flowers were just supposed to be a reminder of the support we'd like to offer as extended family. But they didn't receive flowers from us. I feel like an ass right now. I ordered the flowers on my card to represent the 30+ people in my family. Now it looks as though no one in my family thought enough to send flowers.

I've done the telling, so for the "show" part of this show and tell, I'd like to show the email address that the identity thief used to purchase services from Lifelock.com. Ironically, it's a service designed to protect its clients from identity theft. That's right. Was tomrice35@live.com playing a cruel joke? Maybe. Maybe he won't like his email address plastered on the internet in association with identity theft. Maybe he won't like the nasty emails I'm going to send (feel free to do the same). Maybe tomrice35@live.com is just a bad person who steals from innocent people. I don't know. But I do know that tomrice35@live.com is the reason a grieving family received one less floral arrangement in their time of despair. Thanks tomrice35@live.com. You're a theif and a prick.

17 comments:

Megan said...

That sucks. I'm sorry that happened to you.

areyoukiddingme said...

How frustrating. I hope someone catches the prick and beats the crap out of him (since identity theft never gets prosecuted anyway).

Beautiful Mess said...

Oh no! That's terrible timing! I hope that tomrice35@live.com realizes what he did and feels bad, jerk! Thanks for sharing *sending an email*
-D

Tara said...

I am so sorry. Tom Rice SUCKS!!

Baby Smiling In Back Seat said...

I bet he's not even named Tom Rice!

Sorry about the loss and the theft.

Photogrl said...

That's awful!

Sorry about your family's loss and the theft.

..al said...

What a horrible thing to happen to you....would you be filing charges against this tomriceidioticfool guy?

I am so sorry, not only did the guy make you lose your money, break your trust, cheat you, he also made you not do the good deed, you so wanted to do. He made two parties victim of his thieving ways!

FattyPants said...

What a crappy thing to do. I just sent him an email too. Sorry about your loss.

Christina Claassen said...

That sounds horrible Gina...I think that means you need to go on your fabulous friendship adventure tomorrow. It will make you feel better.
Christina

Malky B. said...

So sorry your dealing with all this at a time of grief as well.

Bluebird said...

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. But I think its awesome that you made it the subject of your show and tell! He didn't know who he was messing with :)

Kristin said...

I am so sorry for your family's loss and for what happen due to the identity theft.

ICLW

Jessica White said...

I got a phone call on Christmas Eve about my credit card: How horrible for the family's loss and for you guys who were just trying to support them.

Would it be too late to send something now? Just a thinking of you?

ICLW

N said...

That's absolutely wretched. For you, but also for your cousin and his family. Maybe sending something now would be good -- I know that when my brother passed away, people sent loads of things right away, and then it tapered off, and for my mother, it definitely felt like people forgot. I'm sorry any of you had to go through this, though.

ICLW

melissa said...

Wow, bad timing! not that there is really a great time for your identity to be stolen, but really this was awful timing. I am sure the family will understand once things are explained.
ICLW

Cara said...

That is the worst of the worst...so sorry on BOTH accounts and hope that email blast causes him / her great distress!

Anonymous said...

I think this was a major problem this weekend -- my hubby and two sets of good friends had the EXACT thing happen (well, the security block -- not the rest of it!). Quite aggravating -- especially when the stores/salesclerks have no idea WHY the card is being declined (yeah, sure, you have money in the bank!).

Hope the rest of this week is better. ICLW!

 
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