Life Lessons: Beware the National Bank of Egypt hacking your debit card

As I slowly transition to the real world, I thought it might be helpful to share a few wise words along the way. Because surely I'm not the only one faking it until I make it, right?

So for the first life lesson: monitor your bank account on a regular basis. And by regular basis I don't mean only before major shopping trips like I did. I thought I was being responsible checking it before major purchases to make sure that I don't overdraft for the third time. Oops.

Last week on a whim I decided to make sure things were spick and span before going to bed and what do I see but a pending transaction for $1.43 to NBE donations. What is NBE you ask? Well after googling it I found out that it is either the National Bank of Egypt or the National Board of Echocardiography. Neither of which I would support with my hard-earned dollars. So obviously I spend the next hour convinced that any minute now the Egyptians or echocardiographers were going to drain the rest of my checking account, but thankfully that didn't happen.

Anyways, after a trip to the bank I found out that someone in California had been swiping my account for the past month to see if it was valid but not charging money to it, so I had no idea things were about to get serious. And if this transaction had gone through they would have moved on to a larger amount. Well DAR EL ORMAN, you messed with one smart cookie who foiled your financial plan. After cancelling the card and ordering a new one and filing a dispute with Regions, all is well.

Moral of this story: monitor your bank account every day or every other day or else the Egyptians or echocardiographers will steal all your money.