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JOANNE MacDONNELL 1937-2004 |
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(It Really Wasn't My Fault, Either!)  |
She was just minding
her business when...
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TheColumnists.com. Her columns began in 2000 and ran until she was unable to continue writing in 2002. |
of TheColumnists.com
| Did you know the Internet abounds with such colorful websites as Fionna's Feathers, Pretty Pussy, Sensa and Orgazma? |
I didn't either -- until the above-mentioned sites--and a number of others like them-- appeared as entries on my last credit-card statement.
When I got my last MasterCard bill, I discovered someone--or something--had purloined my credit card number and was having a field day gamboling about these sites, running up a bill to the tune of hundreds of dollars.
The charges listed came with 800 numbers to call, which I did.
I called all of them.
"What are you?" I asked the first one.
Oh. I wasn't quite ready for the answers I received.
I
won't go into detail here, but, needless to say, these weren't
the outfits where I usually shop. There wasn't an Amazon.com
or petsmart among them.
When I called my bank, it put me in touch with the fraud unit
and I explained what had happened, hoping the person at the other
end of the line wouldn't think I was a pervert.
The fraud-unit representative kindly offered to cancel my existing credit card and issue me another with a new number. It would arrive in 14 days.
Now the question was: Could I live two weeks without plastic?
Very matter-of-factly, he told me to write out in detail the charges I thought were erroneous and mail it to an address in Denver. That way, he said, their investigators could check each charge, and decide if it was legitimate and whether to pursue action if it was not legitimate. .
Legitimate?
Yeah, sure.
I
buy stuff from Tootsie's
Twit
all the time. Why, I'm one of its best customers.
From that point on, I thought it best to call my bank's 800 number
daily, even though it is one of those financial institutions
that charges a fee for smiling at a teller, not to mention each
telephone call. I wanted to make sure no other charges were piling
up and wiping out what little of my balance was left.
At one point, the bank did issue a credit to my account in the amount of $227.44. Clearly, it was onto something.
There was nothing new on the new credit-card number, except one entry for something called Sensa. Aha! That certainly sounded like one of the places this person had been frequenting.
"Oh, no," I thought, "Now they've got my new credit-card number!"
I quickly dialed the 800 number and a woman with one of "those" voices answered.
"What are you?" I demanded to know.
"I beg your pardon," she replied.
Once again, I was forced to explain the whole sordid mess to her, fully expecting her to tell me, in graphic detail, what kind of pornography you could get at Sensa.
But first she verified my name, then confirmed the order had been placed by me.
"Ha!" I thought.
"And just what was this order for?" I snapped.
"Well," she said, "on May 23, 2000, you ordered two black refills for your Sensamatic ballpoint pen."
Oh.
©2000 by Joanne MacDonnell. The cartoon image is from IMSI's Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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