MerrinDonahue.com

Kevin called me at work today and asked me if I had paid the DirectTV bill (I sometimes get a wild hair and pay some bills online so he won’t have to worry about it). I told him “no”, and then he dropped the bomb: There was a $300+ charge to our checking account. He called DirectTV, then he called the bank. A few days ago, our bank sent us a new check card along witha note that said that the card processing center had been compromised, and they were sending all customers replacement cards as a precaution. Naturally, we called and activated our new card, which cancelled the previous account. Turns out, we were a little too late. Some thieving bastard already had our old number, and in the 24 hours that it took us to activate the new card, he had a field day on our old one. Yeah, we’ll get the money back (it turns out that it was more than the $300 we originally thought), but imagine my shock when I actually looked at our bank balance when I got home. Shit shit shit shit shit.

This raises another question: Why did DirecTV allow someone to charge to our account without, at the very least, verifying a billing address? Sure, we’re existing customers, but every time I call DirectTV, or log in online, I have to answer a litany of questions designed to prevent just this very thing. So what happened in this case? Am I really that naive?