Monday, January 20, 2014

Thanks a lot, Target.

I was one of those millions of people who shopped at Target during the time they got hacked. So my credit union [screw you, Banksters!] sent me and the husband new debit/credit cards.

We both activated our new cards, and the husband actually remembered to put his new card in his wallet, which was very handy when we went to the grocery store - as couples in love often do - and we got to the checkout and I realized that my newly activated card was sitting on my desk, waiting for me to change my PIN.

But we're unable to change the PINs. This is because we are in detente with our landline, which is the number on the account. What is happening is this: We had 5 handsets, because we are lazy motherfuckers. Each handset proceeded to die, and we got rid of it, and now we are down to the last one, the answering machine one. The answering machine part sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. The phone part mostly does not work. It'll ring sometimes, but you can't really answer it, because it immediately goes dead. We don't really care, because the only people who call the landline are solicitors, creditors, and our mothers.

We've been in detente because we are old and unsure of life without a landline. Seriously. Even though we never actually use it, we can't seem to stop paying the phone company $30/month to have the number. Because we are idiots. We are also unable to remember to buy a replacement battery for the handset - which, now that I think about it, probably would have saved the other handsets we sent to the great recycling pile in the sky.

So we are unable to change our PINs.  And I finally put my new card in my wallet. And then I went shopping, by myself, at Costco on a Saturday. And I got to the checkout and . . .

I had no idea what my PIN was. None.

The envelope was sitting on my desk, just like my card had been the week before. Except this time, there was no one to save me. I had no checkbook, and I had $13 in cash, which would just about pay for the block of Tillamook and carton of heavy whipping cream [I HAVE MY PRIORITIES, PEOPLE].

The nice lady said that a lot of people had this problem, because of the whole Target fiasco. She also suggested I run home and get my PIN and come back, but honestly, by that point, I was hot, tired, and had to pee. I just cut my losses and went home, cheeseless and sad, kind of hating Target for making my life so difficult.

Adding insult to injury, when I opened the envelope with the PIN, I realized I probably could have guessed the number. I'm kind of mad I didn't. Mad at Target, obvs.

3 comments:

  1. I'm in Colorado and having a corded land line enabled me to get the reverse 911 alerts when my power went out during the flooding last September. (We didn't have an evacuation order where I am, but we did have other warnings/alerts that came in via phone.) My neighbors all had their phones via the cable company, and no power to their modems = no power to their phones.

    I say keep the land line and order the battery and possibly also a corded handset via Amazon. And think bitter thoughts about hackers and identity thieves. They deserve it. (I was hit by the Target thing too.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. We gave up the home phone months ago, when we ditched cable -- it tooks us about 3 years, and we were actually paying for a land line for about 6 months when we didn't have any phone that worked on it. Because lazy is awesome.

    While it appears that my debit card was never used, my bank is issuing me a new one -- which means that everywhere that I have automatic payments set up . . . well, it will be an interesting few months.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Our landline is "free" with our Comcast package. It cost the same amount to have high speed internet & a landline as it does to have high speed internet.

    ReplyDelete

Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.