by Beks
Until we built up our full 3 – 6 month emergency fund, my husband and I made the silly decision to keep our credit card open. We don’t carry it with us, and we keep it hidden at home to prevent us from using it.
We haven’t used it…
But that didn’t stop the continuing Bank of America mess.
I received a letter in the mail today and according to ‘Bank of America Global Fraud Prevention’, my account information was leaked – by Bank of America.
Rather than say, “Oops, we goofed…again. Sorry”, they said my account “may have been compromised at an undisclosed third-party location”.
They spent the next two pages telling me about the steps that were taken to ‘protect my security’. Meanwhile, all I could think was, “If you people didn’t lose my information in the first place… I’d feel A LOT more secure.”
So, I’m slicing the parachute. Goodbye emergency B of A credit card. I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to survive without you.
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
I’m proud of you for cutting it up. But I hate Bank of America. They violate federal law and give bank accounts who can’t prove their identity. I really dont trust any major bank or mortgage provider. Countrywide sent me the same mail about my information. (when countrywide existed)
Good luck 🙂
Slice the parachute! Just do it. You have lived without it for a while now and there is nothing that says you can’t open an Amex or another card just to have…just beware that it could happen to them also.
Wow, that’s pretty committed if that was your very last card.
I can only imagine how good it feels to cut that card up knowing there is money in the bank in case of emergencies. Green with envy here! 🙂
Are you planning to close the account also? Your info could still be compromised as long as it’s open. It will slightly affect your credit score if you close it but I don’t think very much or for very long. It would be worth the peace of mind to me.
Blessings!
Oh, it isn’t just BoA. I have a Citi card that’s had to be replaced twice because it’s been compromised. The banks do their best (mostly) but it’s hard to control what all the retailers do. Add to that the fact you have professional hackers working with organized crime to get people’s info and it becomes very hard for the security people to keep up. Once you solve one way of hacking the computers someone comes up with another way.
In my case Citi caught fraudulent use on my card before I did, notified me, and sent me a new card. I found them to be very good at handling things like this.
They just sent me a new debit card for this reason. I’m a little bummed, since I’ve had the old number for MANY years and have it memorized.
I had the same problem with Bank of America.. we got a card with a $500 limit with the checking account that we opened. We pretty much threw it in the sock drawer. After some time passed we had charges appear on the card for insurance and other 3rd party services that we never approved and or asked for. They throw on these things and if you pay it or miss it your stuck with it and no one in Customer service seems to know what to do and you always have to go to the CS manager in order to have the charges refunded.
Beks,
Congratulations on taking the bold step to cut up your credit card. Even more so than that is the leap of faith you took in relying on ONLY your cash reserve for emergencies.
I too am working on building my 6 month cash reserve. I have no debt (other than my house) and we recently had a small emergency.
We had a flat tire, and our spare was flat too. This is where I might have been inclined to USE credit, but instead, we did some research, found cheap tires and paid cash for the repair, and we didn’t even touch the emergency fund.
When you are building the emergency fund, many of the so-called emergencies are seen for what they really are… no big deal.
I just realized that I was off topic in my last comment…
One company that I used to work for had a laptop stolen that contained all our social security numbers and other payroll information.
To better protect the employees, they gave EVERYONE in the company a 1 year gold package of Equifax Credit monitoring.
This was nice because we could see if any damage was caused by the slip up.
Has BOA done anything to make you feel more secure? Have they giving you FREE monitoring for the next year?
If not.. I’d say it time to drop ’em as your bank.
They sent me the same letter. It appeared in the mail right after I got back from my honeymoon in the Caribbean. Luckily, they didn’t actually cancel my old card since I needed to use it overseas. (Provides more protection than my debit card.)
I don’t use the credit card usually, but I used it for the final wedding expenses since I knew I could pay it off with gifts from the wedding. That payment goes off this week.
Congratulations! I left B of A years ago when they magically, out of nowhere, increased the rate on my 30-year FIXED RATE mortgage. Though they eventually fixed it, I refinanced away from them to a credit union immediately.
Congratulations! not every one got the heart to cut the credit card, most people leav on credit, we need protection from the banks, they are the one leaking the information.