As if puke on my doorstep isn’t enough…

Today I woke up to this:

Someone had hacked my Barnes & Noble online account.  Dangerous, because they have my Discover card information on file.  ***Lesson learned: Do not leave credit card information on file online.***  The very next email was this:

Whoever had hacked my Barnes & Noble account had used that credit card on file to make an order.

I immediately got online to check the order, and it seems that I sent some guy named Davis a $300 e-certificate B&N gift card.  The message read “Happy Valentines Day, Love you.”  And since they had changed my password, I couldn’t log on to cancel the order.  And since they had changed the contact e-mail, I couldn’t even have them send me the new password.

This is why I will never leave credit card information on file anywhere any more.

I called the Barnes & Noble toll free number.  They were there to sell me something, but their fraud department didn’t open until 9am EST. 

Great.  So I called Discover and they were very helpful, said they would file a report, but I had to talk to Barnes & Noble first.  Since I had left my card number online at the B&N site, it couldn’t be considered a fraudulent charge, that it was a fraudulent order and B&N would have to deal with it first.  they did say that if B&N refused to help, they could file a dispute on the charge and we could go from there.

Next reason not to leave credit card information online:  if the card had not been online, it would have been a fraudulent charge and Discover would have reimbursed me immediately.

I cursed and bitched and moaned about h”how could Barnes & Noble acknowledge that my information may have been changed without my consent, and yet minutes later allow a $300 gift card charge?”  I called them all kinds of things and swore I’d never do business with that rinky-dink company again.

And now I have to eat my words.

Dear Barnes & Noble,  I’m sorry for all the crap I said about your business practices.  I should have waited until I had all the information before jumping to conclusions.  Please forgive me and I will still be doing business with you.

I called them as soon as I could, at lunch, and was told that they had already flagged and denied that order and charge.  What showed up on my Discover card was the preliminary charge, the one they do to make sure I have the credit if the order does go through.

They cancelled the order, I wasn’t charged and even better, the scumbag didn’t even get his $300 gift certificate.  Yeah!

And when I got home, this was in my email box:

Well, I learned two lessons today:  Don’t leave credit card info online and don’t jump to conclusions about Barnes & Noble.  And it didn’t cost me $300.