Thank YOU, Amazon!

Last week, I came into work, sat down to run a few processes, and while those were chugging away, thought to peek at my email for a minute.

Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, Del...whoa? What's this? Now, normally, if I see an email from a resource I use frequently that says something like "Attention Required" it's an automatic delete, and then I'll go to that source and see if there is something on their site or a message actually sitting in my account somehow. For some reason, however, this one DID grab my attention and I figured it was at least worth opening, knowing I would never click any links to "fix my account settings" or anything of the sort.

I still don't know what it was about seeing just the sender and the title of the message, but I did open it. Scanning through, it honestly sounded legit. So I started actually reading the message.

Wowza. Okay, this really sounds legit, so I immediately log into my bank account. There is a single $1 charge from Amazon. I didn't make any Kindle purchases on that date or anytime near that date. Time to call the bank. They cancelled my card, issued me a new one and I'm back in business only being out a single DOLLAR (at the most, the charge will be removed after a dispute period). THANK YOU AMAZON!

What's even more strange is that I don't normally save my credit card information on any websites. I did have the card information saved with Amazon, mostly because I have a Kindle. It was an extra stroke of luck that the theives tried to use it on Amazon. Had they gone elsewhere to use it, I might actually be in much more dire straits. So then I start to wonder, when did they get my number? Unfortunately, I used it a lot over the holidays. It could have been from just about anyplace: stores, gas stations, food purchases, you name it.
 
I refuse to live my life in fear, though, and I will be using my new card in about the same way as always. You can bet my new card number will be stored with Amazon, though!