I am a man with more money than free time, thankfully being gainfully employed in 2012. I have no shame for purchasing gems from the Gem Store with some of my hard-won dollars, instead of the scarcer resource of time out of the office.
I was a bit surprised when my bank texted me today to inform me that someone had hi-jacked my card and was racking up charges at a video game arcade!
Call immediately if this isn’t you, they said! The last arcade game I played was X-Men vs. Street Fighter, when it was new, and while my memory is filled with nostalgic youthful afternoons spent with sweaty hands gripping the pizza-greasy joystick to use the OP Magneto/Akuma team to beat Apocalypse, I don’t believe I’ve even actually seen a video arcade since I acquired my first credit card.
Although the nature of the theft was at first unbelievable, the amount wasn’t: $10! The exact quantity of dollars which comprises a roll of quarters, the perfect crime for a video game arcade: converting my virtual plastic money into untraceable but machine-ready coins!
So I dutifully called, immediately in fact; almost more to learn where I could find this archaic den of adolescent profanity than out of panic that my CC # had been stolen. What is this place, this hovel for teenage credit card thieves who are so desperate for another try at an Area 51 boss before the counter hits zero that they resort to petty theft of a roll of quarters, 21st-century style?
It is definitely a video game arcade, she said. CHARGES.NCSOFT.COM, the kindly and concerned lady informed me over the phone.
MORAL OF THE STORY: NCSoft, my bank says that you report your charges as Video Game Arcade via the charge type code. And that this triggers fraud alerts for them because Video Game Arcades are as dead as newspaper subscriptions, the phonograph, and Latin. They recommended that I ask you to update the charge codes. Something less 1986, perhaps?
thanks.
