“Great, so you can fix it?” Dick asked.
“No, sir. I can ask for it to be investigated.”
“So, you think it is frozen by an illegal means, yet you won’t unfreeze any of his accounts?” Billy asked. “How long will it take for your investigation?”
“Three to five weeks.”
All three of us burst into laughter at the same time. The bank was practically admitting that some illegal person had frozen my accounts, yet they were in absolutely no hurry to fix the problem or offer me any sort of timely assistance.
“So what should Mr. Baker do for money until the time that your bank can verify this is a fake freeze?”
“You are welcome to come in and open up a line of credit if you’d like. I see you are a loyal customer and we’d be happy to extend the credit to you while this is getting straightened out.”
“Fine, I will come down right away,” I said grumpily. “How long will it take to get the funds from the loan?”
“Oh, you will get them right away, after the loan has been processed, which only takes forty-eight hours. But it is the weekend coming up, too, so I’d estimate it will be processed by Tuesday.”
I rolled my eyes and looked at Dick in search of some sort of answer to this issue, but he only shrugged his shoulders. I was at the mercy of the bank and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. One thing I knew for sure, though: when this mess was figured out, I would be switching my accounts to a different bank. The security at this one was horrible.
“Thank you for your help,” I managed to muster before hanging up. “You know, I haven’t used that credit card for anything in a long time. Oh wait, I did use it,” I said as I pulled the account up on my phone. “I used it to join Dating the Rich.”
“Is that the only place you’ve used it?”
“Yep,
I think so.”
“Weren’t you dating a girl from there? Josh said there was some trouble with you and her,” Billy asked and I felt the blood rushing from my extremities to my heart.
“Yeah,” I responded. “She’s pissed at me and not returning calls.”
“Just playing devil’s advocate again: is it possible she is an identity thief?”
“No.”
“Let’s look at what we have going on here. Your problems started after you met her. The bank has evidence that the attack on your accounts originated from the credit card you have on file with her company. And, she’s suddenly disappeared from your life?”
When he said it like that, it didn’t look good. Delilah wasn’t some sort of identity thief, though; she wasn’t causing all this trouble in my life. It just wasn’t possible.
“It’s not her,” I quietly mumbled as I continued to think through everything that had happened. “Josh told me there were scam artists on that site. I don’t think she is one. We connected. I really like her.”
“Brandon, I hate to break it to you, but scam artists are really good at what they do. If they were bad at it, they wouldn’t make any money. Using a good-looking young lady like that is just one of the tricks to their trade. You said there was a man who visited you. Was it possible he was just casing the joint as part of a larger team?”
“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. I guess he could have been there to case the joint. He seemed to know a lot about me and my former business partner, though.”
“These sophisticated networks of thieves work closely together. They sometimes even infiltrate your friends and marry people close to the target in an effort to swindle people. I’ve seen a lot of really wild things. It doesn’t surprise me that you liked this girl. They probably hired her because she was someone they thought would appeal to you,” Billy explained.
“Man, I’ve heard of these scams, Brandon,” Dick added. “We can find them and sue them if there isn’t enough evidence for criminal charges. Don’t you worry; we will get revenge.”
I was dumbfounded by everything the guys were saying. It just wasn’t possible that Delilah was part of this scam. I couldn’t believe it and I wouldn’t until I talked to her. She and I had a real connection that couldn’t have been faked. Plus, we’d slept together. We talked about our losses and that wasn’t a lie: I saw it in her eyes when she talked about her late husband.
“Are they going to take all of my money?”
“No, no, no. The bank won’t let them pull that money out. Most likely they are freezing it and then will get in contact with you and request a sort of ransom in exchange for giving you access to your accounts again,” Billy continued to explain. “They know it takes banks months to straighten this stuff out and if you authorize a transfer to one of their bank accounts, they will unfreeze everything. Or so they say. I’ve heard of people getting stuck in that loop for a while with the criminals, as well.”
“Hey, hey, what’s going on,” Josh exclaimed as he bounced into the office.
“I need a drink is what is going on. But I don’t have any money, so you’re paying this time,” I said as I grabbed him and made our way out of the office. “You two call me when you figure this out. Don’t let them steal all my money, please.”