I’ve been so busy fighting fires and trying to spend some quality time with my family that I haven’t followed up on the issue that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. You remember the one about the Card not present transaction that occurred on one of my credit cards. Today something else happened that has me more suspicious than ever. First, the good news. The transaction seems to have been reversed so I got my whopping $3.05 back. :)

What happened today is odd. I’ve been getting calls on my cell phone lately from one of 3 different 800 numbers. I usually ignore them but since they have been VERY persistent I answered a few of them over the weekend and kept getting a recording that said “All of our representatives are busy, we’ll try back later”. Obviously, my first question is why call me when you’re too busy to talk? Of course it’s computer generated dialing and they are hoping to get the call in sync with a rep who is free to talk. After this went on several times I started ignoring them again. Today I got fed up and decided to answer another call and there was actually someone on the other end.

He started talking very fast telling me that he was with company xyz and that they had been hired by VISA to contact card holders and reward them with a $100 WalMart gift card and some other things. He just needed to verify my mailing address and play a recorded statement. After that he could answer any questions that I had. I told him that I had a few questions prior to him going any further and he agreed to let me talk. I told him that this raised a few flags with me and that I was suspicious of the whole thing. He replied by reassuring me that he would not be asking me for any information beyond confirming my address. Then he went back to his fast talk. I stopped him again and asked him what his name was and who he was with since I missed it the first time. He told me that he was with Platinum Advantage out of Boca Raton, Fl. Then the alarms started going off in my head.

I told him that I had a “mysterious” unauthorized charge appear on my card by them a couple of weeks ago and then told him the rest of the story. He claimed ignorance of the event and assured me that if it had occurred that they would make it right then he quickly said “Thanks for your time” and hung up. Obviously, his rush to get off the phone at this time makes me really wonder about what the deal is with this company.

A couple more details that are relevant. He mention that the card was actually in my wife’s name and gave me the last 4 digits of the card. I haven’t verified with her as of yet if her card really does end in those 4 digits. Either way, now that I’ve received my new card I am going to cancel hers and get these potentially bad numbers out of circulation. Who knows, maybe this all is a coincidence and a $100 gift card will show up in the next few days. If it does I’ve got the perfect use for it. But that’s a secret. :)