For about 5 days I had been receiving a crazy amount of phone calls from insurance agencies saying I requested an insurance quote online. I finally answered the phone and told them that I never requested an insurance quote online and to please remove me from their call list. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of my issues for the week.
On Wednesday I come home from work and check my email. 3 emails from Walmart.com, one thanking me for my purchase of two 12 month Xbox Live accounts totaling $99.92. The other 2 were the electronic delivery of the Xbox Live codes. I knew I didn’t order them. I questioned the kids and my husband but no one knew anything about them. My 2nd realization that made me sick, I had just transfered money to my savings account the day before because I was about to get paid. I didn’t have enough in my checking account to cover these fraudulent charges. Now the total damage was $174 because of NSF fees from my bank.
I first contacted my bank to tell them I had not made the charges. They gave me the number that showed up with the charges on their end to contact Walmart.com. I spoke with a live customer service rep over the phone. The rep was very nice and took all my info. I then called my bank back and told them to cancel my debit card.
The next day I received an email from Walmart.com. An answer to my customer service call. This is word for word what the answer was:
“Upon reviewing our records we found that our Billing department has taken care of this matter. Due to the fact that the electronic delivery are not returnable nor even refundable, we encourage you to dispute the charge with your financial institution and keep in mind that Walmart.com will release information to law enforcement on behalf of a requesting customer once we are provided the following documentation”
And it have the items they would need should that happen.
So I went up to my bank again to sign dispute papers and took a copy of the email I got from Walmart. The bank said they would “try to get the charges removed”. As of today it hasn’t happened yet.
Then I get another phone call from another insurance company. This one, an agent who gave his name and stated “Angela I hope I have the right number this is_______ from Farmer’s Insurance, Please call me back in regard to the insurance quote you requested regarding your 2003 Tahoe”. My heart stopped for a minute. I don’t own a Tahoe and I definitely did not request an insurance quote from this guy. I called the number he left, it took me to an automated system for Farmer’s Insurance. I got a customer service rep who stated there was definitely a quote request in the system “from me” he read back my name and home address but the birth date was way wrong and of course I don’t own a Tahoe. I told him my situation and told him to remove my info.
At this point now I’m starting to get concerned about identity theft. I contacted the local police who stated they couldn’t do anything because they don’t have a cyber crime unit but was nice enough to bring me an identity theft info book with steps to take and numbers to call.
I just found out today that apparently at lease one other blogger received fraudulent Xbox Live account charges to her credit card as well. I believe she is still working with Walmart to try to get it straightened out. It seems that the issues isn’t solely mine. It may be wide spread.
I urge you to not have your cc info saved on Walmart.com. If you have a Walmart.com account, change your password. Also if this has happened to you let me know. Maybe we can all get together and contact Walmart again to let them know it’s a bigger issue then they think.
UPDATE:
Still no help from Walmart but there are more and more people stepping up to say the same thing happened to them. Check the update on She Scribes facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SheScribes/posts/10150998415376673?notif_t=feed_comment_reply
as well as comments here. I posted on Walmarts facebook page and they sent me to a “feedback forum”. I did fill it out but there seems to be tons of other complaints and I’m not sure how quickly this will be resolved. If you had the same thing happen please post on Walmart’s facebook page, contact Walmart, whatever. They need to know this is a more than just a single incident.
UPDATE 2:
Walmart never refunded my money for the Xbox live accounts that were charged. You can read the comments below and do searches online. I’m not the only one this happened to. Walmart is choosing to back away from this but whatever happened whether someone hacked Walmart’s site or there was a glitch in their system it happened on their end. I took it to my bank when this happened. My bank put the money back in my account for the 2 Xbox live accounts but not for the overdraw fees it caused on my account. Walmart never did anything to remedy it telling me because they were digital orders they couldn’t refund my money. I strongly recommend to you that if you have a Walmart.com account to delete your cc info out of your account. They save it automatically. I did not choose to save my cc info on their site. I can not believe it’s happened to so many people and Walmart won’t do a thing about it. Just take our money and shrug.
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