Well.
It’s finally happened.
After 12 years of doing business online, my bank account has finally been hit by theft.
Earlier today, I received an NSF notice from my bank which immediately got me puzzled – the account in question is just a little personal checking account for “fun money”. We dont use it for family funds or anything, I’m just sentimental about it since it was my firstever checking account, opened when I was 17. I always know exactly how much is in there and where it’s going at all times – yet the NSF letter claimed I was overdrawn and had 70$ in OD fees to boot.
So, I immediately go online to check on my account.
It seems that on Nov. 10, an electronic check for $39.95 posted from Ryco Pica Customer Service. Sicne it was electronic, of course no signature was needed. I had no idea who or what this was from, so I called my bank first. After a few moments, we determined that this was likely fraudulent. Tomorrow I’ll be going in to file an official unauthorized draft.
Then, I called the number for Ryco Pica (1-866-700-0304) listed on the transaction, and spoke to a nice lady there. Apparantly they’re a contracted payment service for various (shady!) businesses. She pulled up the transaction from her side and told me that the transaction had gone through in my maiden name (a HUGE red flag right there because I have been married for over 2 years now) and that it was for an adult website service. Definately not my doing. She was extremely helpful and agreed it was fraudulent, and said there was a note on the account that my bank apparantly had already been in contact with them to cancel future drafts. She advised (like the bank did) that it would be best to close out my account too once I file an unauthorized charge since I don’t know who still has that information.
So right now I’m a bit hopping mad. How dare someone steal my account information for my poor little measly personal account. *sigh* Now I’m going to have to close out that account! Poor little account. 
(Told you, I’m sentimental). I hate the fact that I’m now bruised and no longer naive to identity theft. No longer can I say “It won’t happen to me”. It took 12 years of buying online for it to finally catch up to me, but it did at last. Grrrrrr.
So anyway, I just did some searching online and apparantly there has been a rash of Ryco Pica fraudulent drafts over the past 3 weeks. You can read a message board thread on it here.
Make sure you pay attention to your account!
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Tags: bank drafts, Checking Account, Customer Service, Electronic Check, Few Moments, fraudulent charges, identity theft, Maiden Name, Money, Red Flag, ryco pica customer service, Shady Businesses, Signature, Unauthorized Charge
Noticed your shout on Ryco Pica….I just had it happen to me. Do you by chance have Counrywide Mortgage as your lender? It may be related to them having an employee sell the identities of many of their customers to a 3rd party…please let me know if you do. I’m filing charges today
Lisa » Hi there! No, I’ve never had Countrywide as my lender. The name and address they used in the fraud (my maiden name and my parents addy) has never been connected with any major loan, so the only thing it can be for me is either a bank where I had an old credit card got hacked online, they found some trash and pieced together some shredded statements, or they hacked into a website where I’ve purchased something before marriage online. I can’t figure out where though. What makes things bad is that the bank guy, even though they let me put the fraud claim through, didn’t seem to even want to “believe” me.
I just googled “Ryco Pica” today, because this just happened to me as well! This is a very old account that I haven’t used for a while. “They” used my very old mailing address as well. Since it’s the weekend, my bank cannot do anything. It looks like I too will be closing my “sentimental” account! Boo!
Thanks for the post! I don’t feel so bad now.