I don't know which is more depressing, having your identity stolen and all that money or the person who stole this living a much more exciting life than you.

That happened to us last year 2 weeks before xmas. Really sucked. Took almost 6 months to get all the $ back from the bank.

It was scary and freaky and screwed us royally!

Good luck!

Oh no! I am so sorry this is happening to you. What a complete and total headache :( At least the bank found out.
(LOL that it was at ALDI though! That is where we do as much of our shopping as possible, so no bash, but you know... ;) )

I don't think the Mastercard logo makes any difference, other than the fact that you can *use* it like a credit card (in which case, it costs the vendor a lot more money, by the way).

However, my point is that while the banks often offer protections that are similar to the protections you get with a true credit card, they are not required to by law. With a real credit card, you are only legally liable for the first $50 of charges that are not yours. With a debit card, even when used as if it were a credit card, there is no such legal limit.

That being said, as long as your bank provides comparable protections, it shouldn't be a bid deal. But some people may care about the distinction between what a company offers you for protection and what the law requires.

Of course, the real danger with a debit card is that if the fraudulent charges deplete your checking account, all sorts of havoc can ensue. While much of this is of the nature of overdraft fees from your bank, which they will presumably credit, it can also cause bounced checks, which leads to bounced check fees from vendors, your name on a bad check list potentially, and more.

I'm completely in favor of using a credit card and simply disciplining yourself not to overspend. However, I realized that can be quite difficult for some people. An alternative that I haven't pursued but that may be preferable to a debit card is a prepaid card. Unfortunately, I expect there are all sorts of fees associated with those.

Another alternative is to do like you did with your paypal account and create a separate checking account to use with your debit card. That is, separate from the one you use to write checks. This is an extra hassle, but I expect the number of checks you right is probably pretty small these days, and pretty consistent as well, so managing the transfer of money between those accounts might be a small enough burden to be worth the protection.

While on the topic of financial protection, and realizing that this does nothing to protect you from card cloning like you've just encountered, a great defense against more general identity theft is to freeze your credit. The process is pretty simple and it is very effective. In most states, there's a small fee, though it is waved in the wake of an incident. Though the incident you've just had isn't technically identity theft, it may be enough to enable you to freeze all three of your credit files for free. Note that this is completely different from credit monitoring or "fraud alerts".

Gah! That is the worst. I can't believe you have to deal with that crap.

I never had this happen to me ever *knock on wood* but I am sure it sucks. I had my bankcard stolen twice and getting a new card and getting all the unlawful transactions dissolved was a bitch!

And on Italy and Italian lifestyle: *BLISS* *sigh*

Ren has some excellent advice. Working in the credit card industry, I know more than I want to about ID theft and fraud. Your information may not have been stolen via a purchase, either. If someone hacked into your online account or saw a bank statement, they could easily go in, change your login information, and request a duplicate card.

I agree that using credit cards is safer than using debit. MasterCard is just the facilitator for the debit purchase - they use their network in order to make the purchase happen. But debit is much different from credit because of where the funds are drawn from. Having the money pulled from your bank account instead of a line of credit leaves you much more helpless. And Ren is right that the law protects your line of credit much more robustly than your bank funds.

Glad you caught this early, but for safety's sake, I would recommend getting yourself copies of your credit reports (which you can do for free at annualcreditreport.com) and possibly putting a fraud alert on your credit reports so that if someone tries to open a new account in your name, you will know about it before it happens.

Sorry you're having to deal with this. I hope it gets sorted out quickly and as painlessly as possible.