It's amazing how many places a single credit card is used

 

A year and a half ago, I had my wallet stolen, and had to get replacements for all the cards I had in it.  This wasn't as much of a problem as it seemed, as I was lucky to have done everything right.  However, another card of mine was affected in a data breach, and I found that one of my auto-debits wouldn't work as expected.  Knowing that this would cause me a problem if I didn't resolve it quickly, I decided to get things fixed today, with a little more than a week to go until the next auto-debit.

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Last June, I signed up for a deal with Princess Promotions  where I would get "concierge service", a $3000 credit on my next cruise, $350 in hotel credits, and a 5 night premium hotel stay.  One problem.  This deal is not from Princess Cruises, but a sub par online travel agency using Princess' name and goodwill.  Given that I could get better deals for hotel stays from booking.com or orbitz.com, I realized that this deal wasn't so great and accepted that I would likely lose $500 in the deal.  What I didn't plan on is the credit card I used for payments would get compromised, and a new card number issued just before my last cruise.

Given that the next payment would be coming due soon, I tried to log on to see how I could change my payment method.  And no option was provided.  So now, I had to make a phone call to get this fixed, and I went through a gauntlet to get this done.  If it weren't for the fact that we were getting close to final payment date for my Alaska cruise, I would not have worried so much.  But now, this task is done, and I hope done properly.  Otherwise, I'll have to go through another gauntlet to get things fixed properly so that we can go on our cruise later this year.

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When the data breach occurred and my card got compromised, I had it connected to Uber, Lyft, Curb, EZ-Pass, OMNY, Metrocard, and other services.  I still don't have a complete list yet, but I'll stumble into them as new charges are made by these services.

It could be much worse....

Thank god for computerized fraud detection!

 

This is another short post, as I am tired and have to get up early in the morning to avoid an incoming snowstorm.  As I write this, I just got back to RQS's place after seeing a Broadway Play (more on that tomorrow), just in time for SNL's Weekend Update.  And shortly afterwards, RQS and I plan to go to bed, so that I can start getting up around 7 am.

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The highlight/low light of the day was figuring out how I will deal with the inability to use a now compromised credit card.A new card (with new account number) would be sent to me, but not before my upcoming cruise.  This will force me to spend a couple of hours updating the credit cards for all of my regular payments such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Uber, etc. once I'm home.  One doesn't realize how many places where one uses a card for payments until one thinks of all the subscriptions and stored payment information that uses a selected account.

If the weather prediction wasn't for snow, I'd have planned on taking my time to go home.  Instead, I'll have to rush home and start on fixing things.  Keep your fingers crossed that no more accounts have been compromised.

An annoyance - just before I'm taking a cruise (a short post)

 

This is going to be a short post, as I don't know what to feel right now.

When I looked at my credit card account, I found a $2.00 charge that I couldn't explain.  I wasn't sure if it was a Patreon subscription I just selected.  But this evening, I got a message from my bank asking me to verify whether a transaction was authorized or not - it was not.  So now, I have to go through the headache of switching several auto pay charges from this closed account to the new account just opened for me.

I'm not going to worry about it right now.  I just hope that my other cards are not affected as well.  We'll see about that over the next few days.  Thankfully, this computer will have unlimited, non-streaming internet while on my upcoming cruise.

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On other matters....

DCD left the hospital, and again went to his ex's house.  His ex, N, texted me to say that she will drop DCD off at his mom's place in the morning, and let her deal with DCD's needs.

You can lead a person to work, but you can't make him think.