“We apologize for cancelling your cards. The cards were ‘flagged’ due to a ‘breach.’ No, we can’t tell you Who – When – or How.  Have a nice day and thank you for banking with us.”

Has this happened to you?  What are your rights in this situation?  Does it matter to you how your credit, debit or ATM card/account was breached?  Do you have the right to know which merchant allowed an account to be breached?  Suppose it was the bank itself?

The following is my personal experience.  A separate post about what I did to address this issue will follow.  If this has happened to you, I encourage you to read the second part and take the same steps I took.  If these incidents aren’t addressed with regulatory agencies, the secrecy behind these breaches will continue and we will continue to be inconvenienced, or worse, we will continue to be at risk of having accounts compromised without knowing by whom, how, or why.

DECLINED. DECLINED. DECLINED.

It was a late sunny and hot Tuesday afternoon, summer was at it’s best. We had family visiting and we were all piling into cars, moving from enjoying a beautiful day at the ocean to joining friends for a boat ride on the the lake. A perfect summer beach day was becoming a perfect summer evening on Cape Cod.

My husband asked me to put gas in the car on my way to the lake.  I pulled up to a pump and inserted my card. Declined.  I tried using it as an ATM. Declined. I knew exactly how much was in my account, I check my accounts online just about every day. The message on the pump read, “See the agent inside.”

The clerk apologized, ran my card through, and told me to try to pump gas.  No luck.  “Try a different pump,” he told me.  I drove to a new pump and inserted my card. Declined. The clerk came out and Continue reading →