January 2: As set out in the previous post, I had my credit cards and identity stolen in late November. In mid-December I received a letter from TD saying that they had received my “claim of disputed transactions” and that they had concluded their investigation. Regrettably, my claim had been denied….
I found this to be interesting for many reasons: Beyond speaking to their representative when the cards had been stolen, I’d not made any claim or disputed any transactions with them. Their rep said that the charges that had been processed would not be charged to me. They were obviously fraudulent. I did go to the Police of my own volition, but that report, to the best of my knowledge, had not been sent to TD, so I have no idea what their “investigation” included.
The TD letter invited me to call their customer service number if I was upset that my claim had been denied ( it did, seriously… ) or if I had further information that “you think we should be aware of….”. I called on 4 successive days and waited a total of 2 hours and 35 minutes without speaking to an actual human being. ( Cursing out the recorded voice saying that “your call is important to us”, doesn’t count…. ) I now see why their corporate identity includes a large green chair. You need one so you can wait comfortably for someone to pick up the phone. I finally resorted to writing a letter to the VP in charge and had the local branch FAX it to her office.
In reply, Stephanie from TD called me and we had a pleasant chat. She finally got the sort of detail I might have expected from an actual “investigation”: things like “Where were you when this happened…?” The jury is still out on what I will have to cover from the expenses racked up by the thieves. But the one thing she did say that I found truly surprising is that all of the purchases were made with my PIN. Whoever had the cards also had the ability to read them to extract the PIN and make purchases within minutes of having stolen them. The PIN was entered perfectly the first time….
Technology marches on, nowhere more so than in crime, I suspect. I was naïve to much of this sort of thing, so the whole process has been an education for me. I mention all of this not for sympathy (of course), but in the hope that you may avoid a similar fate in the new year.