Theft.

So this is to serve as a complaint about our system of commerce. Over the weekend, 2 charges showed up on my debit card that I did not recognize. Charges amounting to over 600 dollars, which, in my world, is significant. My wife and I share that account, so I approached her about the charges and she did not recognize them either. I called the bank to alert them of these charges and both of our confusion. I had to initiate a fraud alerting transaction with the bank, which has so far resulted in my debit card number being disabled. This action, I applaud because that means nobody else can use it for their nefariousness. That's where the applause stops. When I asked the bank what is going to happen, I got some fairly nebulous responses raging from "the charges just might drop off" to " the vendor may have to issue you a refund". That's one "might" and one "may". My money did not "might" or "may" get stolen, THEY STOLE IT! No iffs ands or butts. Plain and simple, they stole my money. By the way by "they" I mean American Eagle Outfitters in Pennsylvania. So here I have 2 transactions, behind which is an electronic trail, with names, dates, maybe some sort of reference number, etc. and this is being treated like its some sort of fucking mystery.

I called American Eagle Outfitters to enquire which asshat took my money. I was, of course, given the runaround, and eventually told to basically piss up a rope, they weren't going to do anything for me, that the "items had already shipped"(!). Your skull will be my urinal.

So then I called the cops. The sheriff to be precise. A deputy showed up at my door within a few minutes to take my statement. Wearing too much perfume, and oddly turning me on because she could obviously kick my ass and shoot me with the gun on her belt, the deputy took my statement. She then proceeded to advise me that I should subscribe to one of those ID Theft protection services,and that these cases sometimes don't get resolved unfortunately.

Is everyone blind to the fact that 1) these bedwetters took my money, and 2) there is a record of the transaction and 3) an attached trail of information, like items, addresses, names, dates, probably phone numbers? I mean the stuff had to get shipped somewhere, right? START THERE!  This is NOT a mystery. Kyra Sedgwick will not be needed here. This should have started and ended with me telling the bank I did not authorize the purchase of 600 dollars worth of campy khaki cargo pants!

More to come.

EDIT: It's now a few days later, and I found out some new information. After I reported the deal to the local Sheriff, an Investigator called me to share some information. The reason nobody really seems to give a rat's ass about my 600 bucks is that, according to Federal law, as long as I notified my bank within one statement cycle (which I did), the bank has to refund me any charges I report as unauthorized. I then called the bank to add the Sheriffs case number to my claim number (the cops recommended this), and the voice at the bank confirmed this. I asked the voice at  the bank why the hell don't they OPEN with this information, seeing as how (at least) I freak out when people steal money from me apparently, and didn't get a good answer. Actually I got no answer at all. All they had to do was tell me that, and I would have freaked less. So I checked my bank account this morning, and one charge already dropped off, and I'll (somewhat) patiently wait for the other. I would still use the American Eagle guy's skull as my urinal if I get the chance (I'm a big fan of the oatmeal.com!). So, back on topic with baby raising stuff from here on out.