Fuck today

    And the horse it rode in on.  Fuck today and fuck you, internet.  PayPal in particular.
    Tuesday morning, I was minding my own business, watching some Bad Ink on my DVR, when I notice I have two emails.  One is from PayPal, thanking me for my J. Crew order made through them.  Um, what?  The next email is from J. Crew, thanking me for my order...I made no such order.  I go to the real computer, where I prefer to do my in-depth emailing, and I see that a fucking $500 e-gift card was purchased at J. Crew on my PayPal account.  What the fucking fuck?  (Side note, my parents say that someday this will be the quote I am remembered by.)  At this point, my face is burning, and my heart is pounding in my ears.  There’s no music, but I wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway.  I go to PayPal, and see that there is an easy way to file a claim to dispute a charge.  I do this.  They say it will take 10 days, and I calm down a little, knowing I’ve done what I can.  I also email my bank, asking them to please not let the charge go through, as it is fraudulent.  I think maybe this will be the end of it.  After all, in no universe have I had $500 in my account ever.  Only in my savings account after taxes, and only for about half an hour in late December/early January when I gave my dad money I owed him.  I figure the charge will bounce due to insufficient funds, PayPal will fix it, end of story.
    I discover an email from PayPal alerting me to suspicious activity on my account.  It prompts me to change my password and security questions if this is indeed activity to be suspicious of.  I do so.  I check my account several times Tuesday, and once last night.  (Yesterday was a snow day in my town, so I spent a lot of the morning reading and waiting to be called in to work, then the afternoon working.  My job is normally a 2-6 gig, but on snow days it’s 7:30-6.  I was lucky enough to just get the regular 2-6, but you never know.)  All is well.  My account is not negative.
    I check my account this morning.  The fucking charge went through, and not only did it go through, but the customer service person who responded to my message said that unfortunately, they can only stop charges where the account holder has given three days prior warning, and it appears I have only given two.  I notified you about five minutes after I knew myself, you fucker.  I call customer service, and they tell me I can fill out an affidavit, but it takes as long as PayPal takes, and it’ll be quicker if I go to a branch and do it rather than do it over the phone.
    Fuck.  I now have no choice but to call in reinforcements, aka real adults who will know what to do.  I go to the living room and get my mom.  I explain it all to her, and she tells me to print out everything I can, make a list of what happened and what I did, and she’ll go to the bank to fill out the affidavit with me.  I’m freaking out.  The guy on the phone told me there’s no way to stop the overage charges.  I only asked because I don’t get paid for another week.  Even then, I don’t think I would get the $431 my account is now negative, and that’s before any overdraft fees.  I’m envisioning an ever growing gulf between the money needed to be in the black and the money I get in my paycheck.
    The lady at the bank was fabulous.  She had me fill out the paperwork and emailed the person in charge of reversing unauthorized charges.  She gave me her card, and told me to call after 11 tomorrow (when she gets in), and she’ll do what she can to reverse the two fees I’ll get, and she says even if she can’t do it tomorrow, they’ll be reversed eventually.  I go home, and feel funny until I go to work, but I now have around $5 in my account, and I should have even more tomorrow.
    I know I’m relatively lucky, but when I told my mom, I felt so bad.  I felt like I had done something wrong (which I guess I sort of had, linking PayPal to my debit card instead of credit card), but I mean I felt like I was confessing to something horrible.  I also felt like I’d never have money again, due to the constant overdraft fees, or else that I’d have to borrow what felt to me like an atrocious amount of money from my parents until this whole thing got cleared up.  My body got so worked up that it thought it was supposed to be doing lady things that it is not supposed to do yet, so that just added to the joy of the day.  I considered calling out of work, because I legit felt awful, both mentally and physically, but I decided that all I’d do here was sit and wallow and not even get any schoolwork done, so I might as well do something I’m getting paid to do.
    The moral of the story is: hackers/identity thieves suck.  I’m going to be ok, and once the paperwork all goes through and everything is sorted out, I’m going to link PayPal to my credit card, and hopefully everything will be swell from here on out.  But fuck the people who ruin people’s days, and sometimes people’s weeks or months, all because they’d rather be sneaky than get their money from a legit channel.  I now understand a fraction of what actual identity theft victims feel, and it’s horrible.