Every cloud has a silver lining, right?

So when Barb’s credit card was hacked something good had to come of it!

It started with a fraud alert from Capital One—you know, the company that has Jennifer Garner (trying to be cute) and Samuel L. Jackson (trying to be cuddly) asking what’s in YOUR wallet. The alert, timed at 1:27 AM on a recent Monday morning, asked if Barb had just purchased a subscription to Disney Movie Club.

Disney Movie Club sounds fun, but I was pretty sure Barb had been sleeping soundly next to me at 1:27 AM. And since she is not prone to sleepwalking (or sleep buying) I was pretty confident she hadn’t placed this order. Barb’s account number had been (dramatic music) hacked.

I responded to the fraud alert and was soon chatting with a Capital One agent. After we went through my mother’s maiden name, my high school mascot, and my shoe size he assured me the charge would be credited, Barb’s card number would be canceled, and a new card would be issued to her. He did warn me to keep an eye on my account just in case the hacker had made any other charges before the number was canceled.

Sure enough, when I checked later in the day, I discovered someone had signed us up for Ancestory.com. Another call to Capital One canceled that one. Hoping this was all behind us, we took off for our planned San Diego vacation.

And five days later we returned to…5 blu-ray discs from Disney and a message from Capital One telling us that they had decided the order was not fraud, and we would be rebilled. Oy.

My third call to Capital One. I reminded the agent that it was their own algorithm that had identified this as fraud. We had not ordered the discs, did not want, the discs, and would not pay for the discs. Isn’t that what their vaunted fraud protection was all about?

The Capital One agent said he didn’t have time to argue and recredited the account. I rated him 5 stars.

I also called Disney to cancel our “membership” in the Disney Movie Club. The agent checked the records and told me the membership had been canceled the day before. I don’t know how that happened, but I rated her 5 stars too.

So now we have 5 blu-ray discs that we will probably never watch. It’s not quite the jackpot of free airline tickets, but they will make great Hannukah stocking stuffers–unless someone wants to make us an offer…