No Honor: Until just now I have been very lucky. I've never been a victim of any serious crime, cyber or otherwise. But when I opened my Mastercard statement I knew those days were over. Bloody robbers got my card number.

Interestingly, there were three charges of 39.95 to something called "People Search USA" all of which were credited a within a couple of days. The real killer came next with a $600.00 cash advance from Wells Fargo and the associated advance fee of $18.00. None of these did I have anything to do with.

More interestingly, these charges were to a card I use exclusively for tax deductible writing expenses, and considering the state of my writing career at the moment, this was the most activity the card had seen in a long, long time.

I'm not sure exactly what went on. It could be the bloody robbers were testing the waters with the People Search USA charges, then when it was clear I was not checking the charges regularly, they went for the $600 haul. The thing is, they stopped after that first $600. They had plenty of time to charge more before I saw a statement but they stopped. That makes me think this is some kind of professional outfit. Instead of doing high-risk multiple large transactions on a single card, they probably get thousands of card numbers from Russian hackers and scam them for a few hundred dollars each and hope that they don't attract a major investigation.

Anyway, I'm not liable for any of it. A call to Citibank got that sorted out very quickly. They issued me a new card number and told me they would send a fraud affidavit for me to sign. Presumably this will cause the Citibank fraud squad to get all Elliot Ness with the bloody robbers.

Kudos to Citibank customer service, by the way. I got a real English speaking rep on the line in a matter of a few seconds and he knew exactly how to go about getting things set right. Nice. I may have to look into a card from them that I would use more than once in a blue moon.

Still, there is a question of how they got my card number in the first place. I never used it for casual purchases. I can think of two possible outfits that might have had my number sitting on a transaction server, and in neither case would it surprise me that security was lax.

If the bloody robbers are really pros, it's unlikely they'll be caught, I'm sure. But if they do I would gladly pay that $600 for a chance to turn the thumbscrews myself.