Victoria's Secret and Fraud

We had a couple of messages on our answering machine from Victoria's Secret.  Apparently they wanted to talk to The Husband about his order.  Except that he hasn't placed any orders. 

Yup -- somebody got hold of his credit card number and decided to order a couple of gift cards.  Nice, huh?  Luckily, the card was the one tied to his bank account.  (Yes, we have separate bank accounts.)   Lucky because there's a $1,000 limit on the card. 

Now here's where I get really annoyed.  Victoria's Secret won't give him any more information other than The Husband placed an order for 2 $500 gift cards using card ending in XXXX.  They also believe that the charge was authorized.  So, The Husband calls the bank -- they didn't allow the charge.  Great!  He cancels his card immediately.  But it'll take 10 - 14 days to send him a new card.  What????  This card is also the ATM card -- so we've got to wait 10-14 days to get a new ATM card?  Do the math people -- no cash for the holidays.  Urgh.  Luckily, there's a branch not too far from his work, so he'll get some money from there.  (And yes, I pulled some cash from my account and gave it to him -- he'll write me a check.)

Then The Husband calls the police.  He needs to file a report in person -- makes sense.  They want to make sure he really is The Husband.  And he needs to bring documented evidence.  Ummm...VS won't release any evidence except to the police.  The bank doesn't have any records because they didn't allow the charge.  (Which I call bullshit, because they should at least have a record of getting the request and denying it.) Hopefully, something will work out when he goes in to make the report.  Oh, and the detectives who work on these types of cases aren't in on weekends, so he has during the week. 

I'm now understanding why credit card fraud is so prevalent -- because it is so freakin' easy.  Seriously, if VS hadn't bothered to track down our home phone number from directory assistance -- we wouldn't have even known that this had happened.  Seriously, shouldn't the bank have contacted us?  And what do you mean that there isn't anybody to even take the freakin' report at the police station?  What's that about? 

I'll keep you guys posted as this progresses...