It’s no secret that I’d been a little concerned about the upcoming costs of fertility I’d be paying. $25K is nothing to sneeze at. My plan was to have close to enough in the bank account to pay it all, then pay the costs with my credit cards so I can (1) get cashback for the giant purchase, and (2) buy myself an additional month to save more money before I have to pay off the credit cards. However, I don’t have a high enough credit limit between my 2 cards to pay for the entire expense. I requested a credit line increase with one card, and was denied. That was a shocker; last I checked my credit score was excellent. I was talking to a judge about this last week and he informed me that a new law signed by our president put a ceiling on existing credit lines. In exchange for better interest rates and payoff benefits for credit customers, the credit card companies are no longer allowed to increase credit lines so that the customers can’t incur even more debt than we have. Makes sense. He said that the way to get around it is to just apply for a new card, get a high credit limit on that one, instead of beefing up existing credit lines. But I don’t want a bunch of cards and credit liability sitting around, so I continue to shred all the credit card offers I get in the mail.

Yesterday, I opened my checking account statement to see a weird check approved. It was a check number way higher than the series I’m using, but the amount was nominal, just $29.95. I’m very accurate in my records-keeping, and my checkbook register showed no checks written for that amount. I looked online for an image of this check. I saw that this check is not one of my checks, has the name of my former bank on it instead of my current bank, seems electronically processed with payment to some Red Systems Ltd company I’d never heard of, the bank branch is in Northridge (nowhere I go), and the name of the account holder is my husband’s name (he’s NOT a joint account holder on this account), but with an oddball address in Clovis, CA (nowhere I go). AND…instead of a signature on the signature line, there’s a typed message saying “SIGNATURE NOT REQUIRED. Your depositor has authorized this payment to payee. Payee to hold you harmless for payment of this document. This document shall be deposited only to the credit of payee.” WHAT?! I didn’t authorize crap! The only thing that links this check to me is the fact that the check has my correct routing number and bank account number on the bottom. It’s just absurd that this bank would lock me out of my account for suspected fraud in October when I used the ATM in Venice, Italy, and then lock me out for suspected fraud last month when I made an online purchase for a Christmas gift with a vendor out of the country, but allow a check to go through that has the wrong customer, wrong customer address, and no signature. My guess is that the small theft of $29.95 didn’t raise any red flags. The thiefs probably assumed that because I’m married, my husband and I share joint accounts on everything so he’d be an authorized user of checks, and that if I wondered what the $29.95 check was for, I’d see that he wrote the check and let it go with the benefit of the doubt. Wrong.

I called my bank immediately on this, and they set up a claim for that fraudulent check and temporarily credited me the money. I was advised that as the fraud check uses my bank account number, that I should close the account and reopen a new one to avoid any future draws to pass through. I texted Rebecca and asked for a favor — whether she could tell if all this is a bank error, or fraud. If it’s fraud, I’m gonna close the account. She texted back that she sensed there was clerical error involved, but suggested I go to the bank and close the account anyway. (I’ll say there’s clerical error; the bank should’ve never let that check pass through.) So after work, I went to the bank.

It took almost an hour and a half to do a fraud freeze on my account; to authorize only my pending check payments and next direct deposit on that account (I had to fill out a form to say I authorize only these transactions); to open a new account; to move all the money not going to payments over into the new one. I’d missed my direct deposit deadline by one day, so I have to wait until after the checks clear and the next direct deposit comes in to move the remaining money over to the new account and permanently close the old one. And I have to change all the online and automatic billpay stuff linked to the old account to the new account. It’s a lot of hassle. But as we sat there and all this moving around was happening, the banker helping me said, “Because you’re opening a Premiere checking account, you’re also pre-qualified and pre-approved for our bank credit card.” I immediately said no as I habitually do, but then I thought better of it.
“Is it backed by Visa or Mastercard?” I asked. The only reason I use my ATM/Checkcard sometimes is because the occasional vendor takes Visa or Mastercard only. I’d been thinking I needed to get an actual Visa or MC credit card as backup for these situations.
“It’s Visa,” she said, showing me their three types of cards. One of them had no annual fee and had cashback perks, both of which are requirements for me to get a card. I wondered how much they would approve me for, thinking about the recent rejections of credit line increases. She took my information and sent it through on the computer. Moments later, she said, “Ten thousand.” So my credit score can’t be THAT bad! The card also has a 0% interest introductory period of 6 months.

And suddenly, I realized that THIS is the answer to my recent financial concerns. I can now put a large part of the fertility costs on this card, and get 6 months to pay it off interest-free. Meanwhile I’ll concentrate on paying off the amounts I put on the other cards that are not interest-free. Not having to pay this new card for so long allows me to pay off the other cards immediately, but still get the cashback perks, and I should have no problem paying off this card in 6 months.

So thank you, idiot fake check guy, for giving me reason to go to the bank and open a new account. Thank you, idiot bank-transaction-approval clerk, for your error in allowing such an obviously wrong check to go through, so that I had to go to the bank to close the account. Thank you, banker, for offering me your credit card at just the right time I needed it the most, since I had to sit in front of you anyway, or I would’ve ignored the pitch. Thank you, Rebecca, for telling me there wasn’t a big problem but that I should go in and close the account anyway. And thank you, Universe, for all the strings you had to pull to pull this one off. <3