As an add-on to my article about sleep: Sometimes, you're also up until All Hours dealing with matters of credit card fraud. For the third time in three months, someone is charging purchases I didn't make to one of my cards. When it happens, I know right away because all my cards are set to send me a text message when any amount is charged to them.
So just as I was getting into bed, I got a flurry of such messages and immediately called the credit card company. They're reversing the charges, canceling the card and sending me a new one. This has been happening a lot lately and I'll bet not just to me.
Makes me wonder. Some (not all) of the text messages noted that the issuing company's computers suspected the charges weren't Kosher. Those texts showed me the suspicious charge and asked me to press 1 if the purchase was legit, 2 if it was not. Why can't a card be set to do this for every purchase and then the purchase doesn't go through until the legal holder of the card responds? Wouldn't it drastically reduce bogus charges if the bogus chargers knew using my card number would be useless if I didn't respond to a text?
I'm trying to think of reasons that credit cards don't work this way and I haven't come up with one yet. This may because it's the middle of the night and sectors of my brain think I'm already asleep. I'll see if I can think of any in the morning. In the meantime, the thief has by now probably learned that the card number is no longer valid so he's giving up on it and going on to another one that is also not his. Could be yours.