Card skimmed

[Chris.W]

Having a bit of a rant as i'm totaly raging with the world at the mo!!!!

As one or two of you may be aware i'm currently trying to get a second vr on my drive and the very greatious Nick Mann has oblijed in finding me one that would make a nice fixeruper.

The fallowing is one mans tale of woe so far on the route to double vr ownership:-

In the wilds of Germany, up in the Eiffel region, near the mythical site known as the Nurburgering a group of intrepid adventurers can be found partaking in the most nobel and age old pursuit of ragging cars round the Nordeshlifer.
One evening said adventurers were discussing the merits of VR owner ship and the trials of finding one, when a chance remark from your's truly led the legendery Sir Nocholas of Mann to place his flagen of mead on the table and anounce "I sir, know of a beast that would suit your needs and is most reasonably priced". And so a plan was hatched, with the finer details to be thrashed out at a later date.

Fast forward several weeks and our galant (see what i did there) crew have returned home, slipped back in to the daily routine and continued with life as they know it. Through the media of sms text messages the finer details were agreed upon and a time and date set.

So i find myself last night on the intergeeknetweb attempting to book a flight to birmingham airport....no joy, something not right with the confirmation page. Oh well i think, shall just have to try again in the morning and off to bed i trot. Next morning (i.e. today), the flight booking re-commenced, to no avail, the same problem error type message keeps poping up and after reading the small print i decide it may be prudent to contact the bank.

A quick jaunt in the trusty (if slightly poorly) VR saloon and i find myself infront of the bank manager hearing the fallowing statement "i'm sorry sir there has been some suspicious activity on your card so we have canceled it".
You've done what? i ask, incredulous to what i've just heard.
Manager checks paperwork in front of him "Well it would appear that less than 15 min after using your card in a newsagents in Aberdeen, it was used in a retailers in Cambridgeshire. As we didn't think you could have travel'd most of the length of the country inside of 15min we decided the transaction was iffy and cancelled your card."
Riiiight, ok, well at least the money (£375) was stopped and can i have it re-instated please?
"Fraid thats not quite how it works sir. Firstly the transaction had already gone through and as a result the money is gone and we are going to have to go through official channels and investigations and suchforth inorder to retrieve it. As for the card, because it was cancelled we will need to issue a new one which should take about 7 working days"
7 working days!!! WTF!! I need to get petrol to get to work (78 miles away), i need to feed myself and i need to be in birmingham next sat to purchase a new leggie, then i need to fuel it home! How am i supposed to do all this without my bank card???
"I'm afraid there's nothing i can do as the wheels have already been set in motion, as for the imediate concern of feeding yourself and getting to work, we can draw out some cash over the counter however the other stuff will have to wait untill your new card arrives i'm affraid."
Wonderfull, i work in Aberdeen during the week and travel home at the weekends therefore i wont recieve my new card untill next saturday at the earlyest. There's only one flight to brum from uphere on a sat and it's usually jamed, so that's that out the window. Major gutted!


So here i am left absolutly ragein and wanting to smash something up, with a small amount of cash in my pocket to see me through the next week or so (doubtfull) and no new leggie.......yet
On top of my anger is also a huge feeling of emaresment and regret as not only have i lost money, but i feel like i've lost face.
As a result of this theft and subsiqently having to postpone and rearrange the trip south to purcase this leggie thus messing Nick Mann's plans up, i can't shake the feeling of how much this makes me look unreliable and a timewaster/dreamer, which is the biggest scunner of all.

Right well rant over. Off to sulk in the corner and drown my sorrows with the tasty German beverages that were braught back from the ring trip.

[miller]

Chris, pm me if you want a loan of some dough. No probs

[Chris.W]

Cheers Mike, but should be fine. It's the scew around factor thats getting to me the most, you know, the fact that it's not just me that's affected by this. I mean mostly that it could be seen that i'm messing nick and the seller about. Which isn't my style.

[miller]

ya, understand. I was forseeing lessing the hassle on Nick etc....

[Chris.W]

Ahh i see, cheers for the offer. Unfortunatly it wouldn't really help, it's not a cash amount problem but an cash accessing problem. So i couldn't get access to it anyway.
Thanks very much for the offer tho Mike. Nice to know there are people out there looking out.

[Scanny]

this is why i got a pre-pay credit card and only used it for the first time last night to purchase from camskill. i wouldnt buy from them as they wanted card details and i wasnt prepared to give them over.

online, paypal or pre-pay
in person, cash only!

[Rambaud]

Sorry to hear about your woes, Chris. Same thing happened to me a little while back. Fortunately, my sister could help out.

Like Scanny, I got myself a pre-paid card and stuck a few hundred quid on it for emergencies. It's actually denominated in US$ which helps when I buy stuff from the US.

I hope you get it sorted soon.

[BillHardy]

Chris,if your stuck to get down there i could drive you down for the cost of fuel in my frugal diesel Scenic if that helps

[exevoowner]

Chirs we had this a few months ago and it happened twice in the end we made the bank change all our account details as if they got them once they will hit you again so make sure the bank know you want to change everything in order to stop it happening again and they always do a little payment first to check it works good luck mate i wouldn't wish this on anyone

[Nick Mann]

It's no problem for me, dude. I was at a wedding yesterday, so didn't get your message until late. I will send a message to the guy who has the car and see about the following weekend. Don't panic about me, the only person who might get grumpy is the chap with the car on his drive. If it comes to it I'll see if I can work out a way of getting it here.

[Chris.W]

Cheers for the support guys!!

Nigel, the bank guy suggested that too. It is definatly gona be the way forward.

Nick you have the patience of a saint!!! I think i owe you many beers for your help.

[Nick Mann]

Chris, would coming down on a friday help? It's no problem to give you a bed for the night?

[Chris.W]

I never thaught of that. Will have a look at flights and work finish times then get back to you.
Would have to be an evening flight from abdn as we on intensive training just now so the gaffer wont let us away early.

I let you know tho.