Paper or Plastic?

For all the new scams and dangers of living and doing business in today’s world, I’m grateful for so many resources to combat them. Consider the systems that so ease our management of money. Overdraft protection keeps careless people from bouncing checks. Debit cards can help control overspending and limit the need to carry cash or pay ATM fees when we don't have the right amount. Automated electronic funds transfers help us stay generous and consistent in our charitable giving. Online account access makes record-keeping easy, and keeps me, anyway, motivated to save: (I like to see those big, round numbers in my savings and CDs, and can put money in my ROTH IRA without bothering with checks and forms, envelopes and stamps.)

Today, I’m glad for fraud protection. The good ol’ MasterCard company seems to be looking after my checking account for me. If they weren’t, I’d be out almost a month’s pay.

After filling up my Honda with gas on Tuesday night, I must have dropped my debit card. At any rate, it wasn’t in my wallet at my next stop, at Target, on the way home. (I didn’t give it much thought, assuming it was somewhere in the car.) But somebody else must have picked it up. By the next morning my online banking records showed more than $1200 in unauthorized charges. I called the credit union to get the card canceled and see what could be done to cancel the pending charges or get back the stolen funds.

I hope this will all be cleared up in a few days. We shall see. So for now, am I broke, as I would have been after such a significant theft in my cash-only days? Not at all. I could refill my checking account from my now well-stocked savings, then write checks - or use my credit card for things. On the other hand I think I’d rather just celebrate the poetry of limitations: trying to get to payday with the $10 in my purse and $100 in my back-up local bank account.