Praise God!

We live in a world where evil people try at every turn to steal from all of us. This past week though the incompetence of workers at the Boston Globe thousands of names and credit card numbers were put in the public domain on the streets of Boston. They have lost hundreds of subscribers following that miscue.

Last night after Sabbath had ended, yea, even as bedtime approached, I was trying to complete an online transaction using a temporary account number created by security software provided by our credit card company. The message I got was that this credit card was not enrolled. I should go to the company's website and enroll.

Strange. It is the ONLY card that we actually HAVE enrolled in the program so it made no sense. I briefly thought that perhaps, as has occurred in the past, they had upgraded the security software requiring all of us to re-enroll. Indeed, when I arrived at the appropriate website the interface was completely new. I dutifully followed the procedure, logged in and tried to complete the transaction only to find that...I got the same message that the card was not enrolled.

Doubly strange as I had just registered it. One more time, with fervor. Same result. (Those who do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results...). I finally, after an irritable outburst in the general direction of my undeserving wife who questioned my increasingly irrational behavior, called the credit card company.

After working through the menues and getting a customer service representatives I was told that my credit card was "compromised". [Insert more irrational behavior at this point]

I was passed off to a senior representative with a very soothing voice who I told that I just wanted to be sure that my trying to register the account for the new security software in a bumbling fashion was not the cause of the "lock out." It was not. The fraud unit had identified that someone who should not have our credit card number actually had it. She would not tell me HOW they got it (i.e. - criminal activity vs. company malfeance or incompetence a la Boston Globe) but intimated that it is usually criminal activity which results in these breaches of security.

We reviewed all the charges and were able to account for all of the charges that had been made. Whew! We will be using a different credit card until a replacement arrives - thankfully we have a back up card.

Also thankfully the companies fraud unit identified this activity and closed the account immediately before huge charges were run up. In fact, I mentioned that I usually get an email if there is any suggestion of different activity - such as charges on vacation, etc. The senior representative said that they would have called me in the morning (today) but that this activity had just occurred in the past few hours.

Also thankfully the Lord will forgive my inappropriate behavior. My wife...we'll see. Hopefully.

It appears that 'all's well that ends well.'