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You know how you worry about a ton of things. Then something happens to you that you have never worried about. And it throws your whole world of worries into disarray? That’s what happened to me this week. Tuesday afternoon my phone rang. Since my phone hasn’t rang since the Bush Administration, I was surprised.

(Although this happened before the Equifax breach I believe it’s very important to stay vigilant with your identify and credit score. If you are worried about your personal information you can check the use a service like Credit Sesame to keep up to date on your credit score and any changes for free)

I walked over to the phone with the cautiousness of a teenager in a horror movie.

I answered the phone and said “Hello?”

*Long pause*

“Hello?”

*Long pause*

At this point I could hear the recording click on. Normally I hang up, but since I’m still waiting for the Nigerian Prince to send me his fortune, I waited to see what was up.

“Hello, this is a recording, your credit card has been compromised, please…”

Now normally at this point I hang up. But my banks name did appear on the call display. I tuned out trying to figure out if this was a hoax or not. Then I heard:

“Please press 1 to…”

And then I hung up

Then I started to wonder.

Was my credit card ok?

Has my identity been hacked?

The panic started to grow inside me, as it normally does on Tuesdays (I panic a lot, it’s my hobby), but this call had brought the panic on earlier.

Then I had a logical idea… I say it was logical, but it took me a long time do this.

Call the bank back!

By golly that’s a great idea!

As I waited on the line, I checked my balances. There was a transaction that I wasn’t aware of, but since my wife and I share the account I figured it was hers.

Then I spoke to a rep. It turns out my card had been compromised, along with countless other people. So they were wondering if I had bought a Dyson fan. I hadn’t, the irony here is that I really really want a Dyson fan, but can’t justify buying one.

They then went through a few other transactions that I hadn’t made (none of them as cool as a Dyson fan, get it? Cool. Fan… sorry folks that’s as good as the jokes get today) and cancelled them too.

The card had just started to be used places so I was lucky that they caught it early. I thanked them, they got a card ready to send out

RELATED POST: The Simplest Way to Control Your Credit Card Spending

Then I started to really panic.

Sure they have canceled the card, but my info is out there. They have a lot of my info.

Remembering that this had happened to a friend of mine a few weeks before, he said he checked out Credit Sesame (or you can use Credit Karma both are free) to see his credit history.

So I opened up a browser window with the speed of Usain Bolt (I mean Bolt’s last run wasn’t great, but still, he’s pretty fast) and checked my credit score.

I was fine. Now I have monthly monitoring of my credit score, which I’m not too concerned about but it’s good to know and it’s really nice to be able to see if there are any cards being opened under my name that aren’t mine.

Family Money Plan Takeaways if your Credit Card is Stolen

• If someone from a bank calls, hang up and call them back. Not the number they give you but the number on your card.
• Check your credit card history and make sure that you dispute any purchases that aren’t yours.
• Check your credit score online with Credit Sesame and make sure that there are no other cards open under your name that you don’t know about.
• Don’t give the Prince of Nigeria any money. Or else this will be you…

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