Classy

I took a break from my graduate paper to do a little Christmas shopping with Love. We enjoyed ourselves at Fair Oaks Mall, which is one of the "nice" malls in Northern Virginia. We strolled among the fancy stores and imagined what it would be like to be able to just drop in and plunk down a couple hundred bucks without thinking twice about it. We were, however, productive in getting me a new cell phone. My old phone had been mine since summer 2005 and it was time for a new one.

On the way home we got a phone call from Bank of America's fraud prevention department. They were calling to alert us of unusual activity on our credit card and wanted us to confirm that we'd made certain purchases over the weekend. The first was from a retailer called Slumber Parties Inc. The name didn't sound familiar, but Love and I were just discussing on the way home how we would create an online retailer with a generic-sounding name so spouses could shop for their loved one in privacy and not give up their Christmas surprise when he saw "The Apple Store" on the credit card statement. Many companies use generic-sounding names as it is, like the Exxon station near Love's workplace appears on credit card statements as "Oakton Auto Service".

Bank of America transferred me to a polite, helpful customer service representative. I asked what the store sold. She said it came up as a "General retailer of flowers and merchandise". The lady canceled our cards (in mid-December, gggggrrrrr) and said we would receive new ones in 5-7 business days. Then I looked up Slumber Parties Inc.'s website. They market certain...feminine pleasure products.

Classy. I'm glad to know there's a con artist out there using our credit card number to buy such tasteful stuff.