my debit card number was compromised recently. it was a huge pain to get everything straigtened out, and I have no idea how it happened. I am hopefully only going to be out $3 when it's all over, thank goodness. I was very disappointed at how unhelpful my bank, regions, was.

Lawchick, how did you find out? Was it through your credit report or bank statements?

Bank statements. there were these weird charges from "Yahoo Voice" and what turned out to be banks for online gaming sites. I don't buy from online sources that aren't "secure", so who knows where they got my card number. They also had my cell phone number and home address, though the e-mail address associated with the transactions was not mine.

I'm going to look over our bank statements because we go to BJ's every month and I was not informed.

FYI: what my bank made me do: deal with the merchants myself. my bank would not provisionally credit the money back to my account. if I couldn't get the merchants to give it back, then I would have to go to the bank and fill out an affidavit for each charge, and they would investigate. some of the money has been credited back and supposedly the remaining merchants are crediting the rest soon (this all just happened last week). one merchant refused to pay back a $3 fee associated with the transaction, saying that was my bank's fee so it wasn't their fault (even though they initiated the transaction). the bank won't pay that back either, though I didn't push it too hard.
I naively assumed that if I called my bank, they would give me my money back and deal with these merchants. I'm very lucky that I have enough money to cover my bills while all this is being dealt with.

Lawchick, how awful and frustrating for you. Something similar happened to my mom and her bank/credit card company (can't remember which) was extremely unhelpful. I am kind of paranoid about checking my bank statements on a regular basis (almost every other day, even though I use mostly cash only) but I'm glad I do now.

bigestivediscuit, I check mine probably twice a week. the funny (kind of) thing is, I totally ASSUMED it was my husband's debit card! he plays online poker sometimes and says it's secure, but I'm wary. my online ledger just says if it was a check or a check card -- it doesn't say which one of our cards made a particular purchase. I was like "you've been playing hundreds of dollars of games or looking at that much porn??? can't you do that for free???" then it turns out it was all my card. oops!

it's interesting - bank of america always lets me know if my number has been compromised, yet they usually block my card before telling me so i've been known to get declined because i didn't know of the block. i get worried when i hear about these things happening - and i always try to keep tabs on my finances but i know that i can't be 100% on top of it - and i fear that someone will steal my identity from the information on my credit.

Once I found out about that story about the stolen credit card numbers, I changed both my debit and credit card numbers real fast. I didn't see any weird purchases in my statement but better safe than sorry.

My boyfriend once lost his debit card, and some idiot picked it up and went to CVS and made 5 purchases of $60 each until he used up all the cash in the checking account After what my boyfriend went through to get that money back from the bank (it took MONTHS) I rarely use my debit card anymore, its just not worth the hassle. He has bank of america (so do I), and you'd think they would be suspicious of 5 purchases, one after the other, of $60 each. And what about the clerk at CVS?!?!?! How ridiculous is that? My credit card companies would call me if that ever happened!

I got a notice in the mail that my debit card was at risk, so they issued me a new one, but its still a pain in the butt because all my bill payments were linked to my old card and it was such a hassle. Oh well, better safe than sorry!

My debit card was compromised and I found out when WaMu called me. they handled everything and within 5 or 7 business days they temporarily credited my account with the amount of the fraudulent purchases. The debit card # that they took was mine and not my husband's. I'm in South Florida and the purchases were made in Boston. It started of as one small purchase, around $7, at Mrs. Fields in a mall in Boston, then like $50 at another store, then, almost $200 at yet another. It totally freaked me out that it was my debit card compromised and not my credit card.
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WaMu was very good about the whole process. The only thing that was annoying was that I had to call twice to have my debit card re-issued. And to think, I was originally very hesitant in changing banks to Wamu...