Thursday, the last day of April, while studying parol evidence for contracts I received a phone call from our bank in Idaho, Zions Bank. They asked me about some suspicious activity on a bank account. I told them I could go online and take a quick look and call them back. When I went online I noticed that Amanda’s account had been overdrawn by several hundred dollars. We only use this account to keep some money hidden away just in case of an emergency. Meaning, we never use it. She confirmed her card was at home and I knew my card was at home. Okay, maybe a little identity theft. There was one nagging problem, these charges were not off in far away Venezuela like the previous problems. These charges were right here in Oklahoma City! Something really bothered me about that. I called some friends, the Elders, and found they were only a few blocks from the house. They called me back to confirm the back door had been kicked in. They called 911 and I borrowed a friends car to go home.
After taking a policeman through our mostly untouched home, he began fingerprinting (after determining this was a burglary II. I thought burglary was during the night!). These petty thieves knew they were only going for money, credit cards, and some jewelry. Since our neighborhood has a good number of people who walk around at all hours, anything more probably would have looked very suspicious. No laptops, computers, books, DVDs, or anything really of value. Pretty much just what you could fit in your pocket. The best part is that they took our British Pound Notes and tossed them on top of the dresser. They didn’t want foreign money they could easily convert! Just the cards you can easily trace! They took some of Amanda’s necklaces and rings. They didn’t take the jewelry that had some modest value but the jewelry that wouldn’t fetch anything at a pawn shop! These guys were real idiots. They did leave the lights on throughout the house even out to the garage.
The story gets even better. Within hours, two of our other banks had called us about suspicious charges and had put holds on our cards. These thieves were out high living on the hog…at Walmart, Taco Bueno, and 7-11! Before the cards put on holds or I canceled them, they were able to get almost $3,000 in charges on 7 different cards I had in my desk drawer. (Mentioning they didn’t take my Omega Watch which is easily worth over $1,000 and was sitting on top of most of the long unused cards.) These ignoramuses spent most of the money at Walmart!!!! The store that invests so heavily in surveillance! They visited over 4 Walmarts before the day was done, enjoyed some lunch, and filled up the car. I don’t know what they were purchasing but it was rarely over $70 dollars a transaction. So they must have been making repeat purchases of something because so many of the charges were identical. I don’t know.
Luckily, Amanda and I both had our cards to one of the accounts so they could not access it. I never got a card to our account here in OKC, so it is safe as well. So we have access to funds as I can transfer to the accounts that we still have access to. But I have to get new cards for all the other accounts and get the money back in them (meaning the accounts are useless until the fraud and investigations are done). This is not to mention the needed replacement of our back door. We have a full storage dresser keeping the door closed for the moment.
Anyhow, I should be wrapping up so I can get ready for PEC. On another note, I discovered this week that about 8 shingles have blown off the one side of the house. I also appear to have some warping of a board on the back roof of the house making a sort of rippling look on the roof. Andrew assures me it has to do with moisture and no vents in the back roof. Plus as I cut some of the branches off that were too close to the roof, I could feel how much the roof gave way under my feet bringing back the HVACer’s comments about the plywood on the roof being too thin. This probably would explain why the rafters on the very end of the roof are sagging. I hope to get the shingles fixed, but the DIY roof may be in need of some other serious repairs. The sticker price I fear will be greater than what we thought would be our greatest expense, namely the plumbing. I have a professional coming by to give us a bid on fixing the shingles, his opinion on the rest, and the back door.
Time to close. I awoke this morning thinking of the acronymn we put together to remember interpretation of contracts. You may find it humerous. We found it highly usable in remembering interpretation. LQSS2PPHVWGRR Those are the generally available interpretation canons for a contract. To remember the acronynm, “My LQSS 2 the Pied Piper Hitler, in his Volks Wagen, in the Great Rally Race. We lost in the race. To who? Hitler, who was a pied piper, in his mass produced vehicle, the Volkswagen. What do the letters mean. Without explanation the list is as follows: Lists, Qualifying terms, Specification, Series, 2 Meanings in favor of non-drafter, Public Policy, Public Interest, Handwritten over printed and printed over form, Validity over invalidity, Whole document, Grammar, Redundancy, and Reasonable interpretation. Guess I am somewhat prepared for my contracts final tomorrow. Off to dress for a PEC where I report and nobody does anything on the information!