Hello, my wallet was stolen from my car Friday, It had 2 credit cards and my debit card from my bank in it. I just noticed online that a charge for over $2300 TO BEST BUY was made on my checking account debit card, Friday night. I didnt notice the wallet missing until Saturday, and called the account in stolen, but the rep said nothing about the pending charge. Now $2300 is deducted from my checking account. I tried to call customer service but the wait is over 20 minutes to talk to someone....am I going to be out of this money? I know on credit cards you have some protection against unauthorized purchases, but what about on a VISA check card? Please help...believe me, I made a mistake by leaving my wallet in my car...it won't happen again! What can I do?
Debit cards do run this risk of "real money" being taken from you but all is not lost. Contact your bank in person Monday morning. If you are calling before then any amount of time you spend on hold should not matter. Twenty minutes or 2 hours. Just act on it. And if you kept your account agreements from when you opened the account get them out and read them. You probably will feel better when you understand the position your bank holds and the protection they give you. I am sure all banks are somewhat different but I think some limits are set to protect you if you report quickly. I think I will start leaving my debit card at home... John
Does your bank happen to be Bank of America? I know that on their Visa checkcards they have a zero liability policy. They are one of the few national banks that have this policy for check cards with 0 liability.
Same thing happened to me TWICE. That's why I carry an ATM card and not the visa check card. I only take the visa check card if I have to. In both cases I got my money back in like ~2 weeks. This was through the credit union. The BUNK thing about it was that I was a** out the money during that time. Fortunately they paid my checks and didn't charge me any fees. :-(
make sure to put in writing to the bank, and have them give you a reference # that you reported it within 24-48hrs.....good luck.
This happened to me as well. I called my bank when I noticed charges (someone had stolen the #-I still had the card) and then proceeded to buy pre-paid phone cards at 100$ per pop until the bank account was drained. Even then, the bank allowed two more charges to go through, so my account was actually negative, plus the overdraft fee. I called right away and spoke w/ customer service rep. They asked basic info, and sent me a form to sign. They immediately credited the money "pending results of our investigation" but refused to credit the account overdraft fees. But by the time I received the forms to sign, the bank had called and said that my account # had been stolen over the internet-my guess is amazon or ebay. Anyhow, I think it depends on your institution, but if it is a MC or VISA checkcard then I believe that they offer some coverage for this. Good luck.
If you have renter's or homeowner's insurance it should cover the amount you are liable for. sorry about the bad grammar
I currently have a situation with my bank, and I was wondering about this myself. I have an account with a bank that has been idle since may (was considering using the account at a later time). There hasn't been a deposit, withdrawel, debit, check, etc... since may and there was a $5.00 balance. All of a sudden there were three charges that brought the account negative. The bank paid all three charges and charged me a $25.00 overdraft fee on all three of them, plus a $5.00 per day negative balance fee everyday until I noticed the error and had the money to bring the account positive. As far as the overdraft fees, I would think that the bank should be required to waive those if they go ahead and pay a transaction even though you don't have the money in the account. They did refund the account the amount of the charges pending outcome of investigation, but none of the overdraft fees or overlimit fees.
