Ha! Can you believe it? Well, you probably can.

Someone made a R1850 purchase (that’s about $250 for the folks from the USA) on an account I have with a clothing store (Edgars), by pretending to be me.

I know it couldn’t have been me, firstly, because I cut up my Edgars card ages ago and, secondly, because the purchase was made earlier this month, in Cape Town.

At the time of the purchase I was in the middle of the bush (literally), visiting one of my friends on his farm – up in the Transvaal.

The Irony

The irony of this story is: I’m totally against store accounts. In my whole life I’ve only ever opened this one store account. And what do you know? This one store account I have is used by someone to commit fraud.

I opened the account about two years ago, made one purchase, settled the outstanding balance right there and then, and destroyed the store card immediately thereafter, by cutting it up.

I did not want a credit facility with the store. I opened the account because I was about to buy something there and noticed that by opening an account I could get about 50% discount on my purchase.

The entrepreneur in me saw a gap and I took it, thinking: “Hey, why not? Open the account and get half of this buy for free. Settle the account immediately, cut up the card and Bob’s your uncle.”

Unfortunately, it turns out that Bob is not such a good uncle to have.

Edgars, shall we trust thee?

So my question is. How on Earth did someone make a purchase on my Edgars account? After all, I destroyed my Edgars card, and never requested a new one to be issued to me.

Stinky.

Just how much effort does Edgars go to to protect their loyal customers’ information and access to their credit facilities?

Apparently not much.

Doesn’t do much for that warm and fuzzy feeling on the tummy, now does it?

Do you have an account with Edgars?

What to learn from this

Firstly, just don’t open store accounts.

Not only do they lure you into making debt, apparently they also make you vulnerable to identity theft. When you open a credit facility with a store, you have to tell them just about everything about yourself, short of what you had for breakfast.

Should you really be trusting these people with all that information about yourself? (If you’re still thinking “yes” to that question, please return to the top of this article and read it again).

Secondly, if you have accounts with stores, especially ones you don’t use, or don’t use often, make a point of closing them ASAP, or freezing them so that no additional purchases can be made if you still owe money to the store.

Store accounts are like cigarettes.

No matter what way you look at it, they just ain’t good for you.

In case you’re wondering…

I stood in a queue and filled out a from to dispute the purchase. I’ll post further updates if and when I get more information. Perhaps Edgars is not to blame. Or perhaps they’ll be really good at dealing with the problem. Let’s give them a chance.

Edgars, Fraud, identity theft