No Cash

I very really have any on me or in the house, usually just a few coins for the tooth fairy or mufti days at school..

But yesterday we found out that DH's skype account that he has not used in over a yr has been hacked & we only found out when he got an email in Chinese with payment details on it...2 amounts were taken out of our account by paypal...DH has reported it to them & they are investigating it & it will take about a week to get the money back grrrrr

So it got me thinking if they had of wiped out our account we would of been in the sh*t. We have 1 bank with 4 accounts, 1 is our everyday one where money goes in & we can access it with out debit card, we xfer from this account to other accounts & have a bill account where most are automatically set up to be paid from it.

We can not access any money in these accounts unless it is xfered back to the everyday account, so if that is overdrawn then any money xfered into there would just go on that overdrawn amount...so we have no backup plan in place.

Now I am trying to sort out what is best either cash at home or another account or our accounts set up differently..

Wow that is scary and never something I have thought about.

Bizzy wrote: how could they access your accounts through skype?

Skype was Hacked...they made several calls to Taiwan, very long calls. DH has paypal set up so it was charged that way, so straight out of our account. I don't use it but I think you need something to charge against when you have an account for skype.

DH is in IT so very security conscious when it come to stuff like that & it would of been fine if we were not hacked...

We don't have CC just a debit card.

But it just goes to show you how you are not safe from hackers.

My main concern is we have no money on us as it is all in the bank so now I am thinking I might just put money into the bill account, savings accounts & take out lump sums for food, gas, extras.

Jazzy I hope you get your money back soon. We never have cash in the house just a few dollars.

Ah i see. We dont use our skype for charged calls so thats why i was confused.
We dont hold much cash in hand either... I guess if you dont want your details used if you get hacked again dont have account details linked to anything. You can use your debit card to pay for anything that requires a credit card so long as you have money in the account anyway.

the weird thing was the skype account had not been used for a yr. You need to have a billing system set up. DH uses paypal because if you cancel a subscription or membership it is instant & no money will be charged not like cc or dc which can take a day or so...

I actually hate having my card details recorded. When I did that WW free trail & cancelled it prior to the end & they still charged me but if I had done paypal they would not of been able to.

DS2 had been jumping up & down about getting membership to a site that he played all the time so we got it for him for 1mth to see & he has not used it since so DH has cancelled it & I don't have to worry about next mth coming out by mistake.

I don't use it but they need somewhere to charge the calls to or no one would pay for the service....I hope we get the money back soon.

I am still no closer to working out the best banking way for us.
-I can get an efpos card for our main account & get the debit card over to another account & also use that account for paypal.
-leave as is & move money out into other accounts

I will be taking a cash out from now onward that's for sure

Our skype is set up so we can make calls that cost & they require a cc or paypal etc for you to do that so our form of payment is paypal.

Someone hacked into our skype account & made heaps of calls to Taiwan, skype took payment via paypal which takes payment from our bank account.
Our account had not been used in over a yr & skype must of thought something funny was going on as they suspended it...pity they did not do that earlier but they probably stopped heaps more.

That's a point about the fees, you have to be careful there. I don't want heaps of cards to pay yearly fees on. We have no cc so no debt but also no fall back.

We need to get the saving back up since we wiped them out with buying a car.

Our accounts are
Everyday
Bills
Savings
Savings
Bonus bonds

This is the only problem we have ever had with hackers but not the only problem I have had getting money out.

Once I was using my banks cash machines & it gave a receipt showing the money out but gave no money...I had to walk to a bank with a 4yr old & baby to get money to pay parking at the hospital to get my car out...

I guess this incident with the hacker makes me relies how important it is to have cash & also how lucky we were as we could of been cleaned out...yes we will get our money back but that takes for ever. If they had of cleaned out that account I would of had no money for food or petrol or anything since I can not access my other accounts without them going into the main one & if that was in o/d I would have nothing...it is scary knowing how much I rely on that little bit of plastic.

Oh & I have cash in my wallet know..a few hundred & I just don't want to spend it, I was super stingy at the supermarket this morning...so maybe cash is a good way to save for me lol...not for DH tho

wow that's good

we are kiwibank, I did look at ASB as I like the round up thing they have but the fees put me off...I don't have any or much where I am.

I have decide to get a cashflow card for one of our savings accounts & xfer as usual into it, we don't intend on taking money out but if we need money it is there & will have no access from debit or paypal.

We have heard back from paypal they have been waiting for skype to respond to the investigation & have now re requested sky skype to look into this. We have been told it will take about 20 days...so we are still waiting for a refund.

I have to say the best thing about paypal is they are the ones that take out the money & hold it for so long & then release the funds to the seller & since it is under investigation they hold the money & not skype & since skype is so slow dealing with them they would be an absolute nightmare for us to deal with regarding this.