What a week!!

Although I've heard from several different sources in the last couple of weeks that, according to my horoscopes, this is supposed to be a fantastic year for me...you wouldn't know it from the events of the past week!

We have a persistent leak somewhere in our roof that keep staining our kitchen ceiling. We've attempted to have it fixed three times already! I've been a bit annoyed with the contractor that our Homeowners Association assigned. He seems less than concerned. He has never made an attempt to come INTO our home to look at the damage, but instead, went up on the roof while we were at work to "look around." He said he didn't find anything, but reconfigured the gutter coming down from our neighbor's house. THAT didn't work because within 24 hours, the stain was twice the size that it had been!! He has made and broken appointments with us at least three times and when he finally came over on Wednesday, the fourth appointment (due to Michael calling him and INSISTING he come over), he told me that the leak was very minor and it would be very difficult to find. ARGH!!! I had to leave my office early to meet with this guy and he wasn't even on time! This man is also responsible for the plowing and shoveling of our subdivision and all he did was complain about having to come out and how much it cost him, etc. Wow...really not appropriate. It took me getting on the phone with the Association and Michael calling him repeatedly before he finally showed up!

I let the Association know that I didn't want him to continue on the job, but would prefer a real roofer instead (someone who knows what they're doing)! Now we wait to be contacted by someone new and pray that our ceiling won't be damaged more.

If all of that wasn't enough...on Thursday, we discovered that we were victims of identity theft! Michael called me at the office and about 2:00pm and asked if I was moving any money around because it was gone! OMG!! I immediately went online to check and there it was (or should I say, there it wasn't!). What a nightmare! We immediately got on the phone with Bank of America via conference call (he from his office and me from mine) and we spent the next two hours talking with six different representatives!! This was just the absolute worst, most sickening feeling. This thief drained three of our joint accounts. It was a LOT of money! To make matters worse, it was actually the 2nd time in three weeks that we (Michael) were hit! On January 10th, Michael was contacted by the bank because of fraudulent activity on his debit card! Those charges were almost $2000! We got that taken care of with the bank's fraud department pretty quickly, but this activity was completely different.

Someone opened an account online in Michael's name with themselves as a co-owner and then called the bank center, impersonated Michael and then authorized transfers into his own account! And it all happened so quickly! It made the original crime look like nothing in comparison!

I had an annual company event to attend that evening, but I didn't stay late. I went home to pick Michael up and then we headed to the police station to file a report. We were there for about 90 minutes. The officer was helpful, but showed no emotion. He informed us that they get about 30 identity theft cases per day. That information did nothing to help us feel any better.

Our heads were spinning. I got no sleep that night and had to be at the office early the next morning. We called to cancel all of our credit cards and put fraud alerts with all three credit bureaus. We then had to think about all the places where we had automatic billing and where we wrote checks, etc. We both left work early on Friday to go to the bank. I insisted on speaking to a manager. Luckily, we met with the branch manager right away and he turned out to be a wonderful man. He really helped us with our investigation and he was extremely helpful. We found out so much more information through him than we did from the people on the phone! In fact...we found out EVERYTHING about this alleged thief who lives in Florida and works for Seaworld of all places!

We're unsure if he is the actual thief or if he is another victim of identity theft, but at least it's something. Michael couldn't believe the amount of information I got! We immediately took it to the police station, but the officer we were dealing with wasn't on shift yet so we left the information with the officers at the desk.

On Saturday, we went back to the bank as soon as they opened at 9:00am in order to close all of our accounts (we already put freezes on everything). We found out some additional information on the first incident and it then took 3.5 hours to close everything down. It didn't even leave us enough time to get to another bank to open accounts. Because the bank is FDIC insured, all of our money was replaced by the bank and it's now up to them to find the thief and prosecute. The branch manager at the bank felt so bad for us. He apologized for everything and told us he didn't blame us for leaving his institution. He said this was the worst case he had ever seen. He knew we spent a LOT of time in his office (6 hours in two days).

By the time we finally left, it barely left us enough time to get to the Chinese New Year Celebration with our Chinese American Culture Club! We made it just in time. We met my Mom, my friend, Sue and two of her nieces (Elizabeth & Jessica) as well as Mark & Sandy, another waiting couple whom we met last July. They had some wonderful news...Sandy found our recently that she's pregnant!

We had a wonderful time at the event. It's been fun seeing some of the kids grow up over the last three years. We had a chance to say hello to some folks that are becoming familiar faces. I also had the chance to say hello to Paul Duggan, which was so nice. He asked if I had heard from Amy at LWB. It seems he works tirelessly. We only had a few moments to talk...I wish we had more time.

After that party we came home and had about an hour or so to rest before heading off to our friend, Juny's house for a housewarming party (he just bought his first home and Michael helped him move). It was a very nice party.

Today is Superbowl Sunday and was our day of rest from all the excitement. Our stress level was through the roof and it felt good to do nothing all day. It's not like we could do a lot...we have no money...no bank...no credit cards! We jut prayed that nothing would go wrong. Wouldn't you know that Michael got a flat tire this morning on his way to the forest preserve to run stairs? SERIOUSLY!!!!

As the title says..."What a week!!"