Depression is Real and I am at an All Time Low

Today is the first day of fall and I am falling fast. I feel like a failure and 2019 has not been a good year for me. I am about to just give up, or better yet dig a hole and crawl in it. I just want to disappear.

My misery began on August 6, 2019. When I woke up the next morning I checked my bank account and noticed that someone stole $1,709 from me. This person left me with $5 in my savings account and 25 cents in my spending account.

About six months ago I set up a personal banking account with Chime. Chime is a re-loadable debit card with an attached savings account. They state that there are no hidden fees and automatically move money to your savings account every time you make a transaction. This sounded like a fantastic option for me to manage my funds for my online magazine and my Avon business.

For several months this new bank account worked great. I managed to save up $700 from ad sales and Avon sales. This was tucked away in my Chime account for emergencies. In July Chris got a nice bonus from work. He gave me enough money to purchase a new flute and tuck away for Christmas. I thought it would be safer in my Chime savings account instead of our family savings. When ever I put money into our family savings it always ends up going towards bills.

After purchasing my flute I had $1,714.25 in both accounts combined. I was also selling more and more ads on the Healthy Moms Magazine. Everything was going well for my businesses and it looked like we were going to have a great Christmas at the Talbert Zoo.

The Chime app has this feature on it that says, “send money to a friend.” Chime account holders (or what they like to call members), can send money to other Chime account holders. All you need to do is enter their Chime username and enter the amount of money you want to send them – then, walla it is instantly delivered to their Chime account. I think this feature is for families with teenagers who also have Chime cards. This is an easy way to fund your child’s account.

While I was sleeping on the night of August 6, 2019 Chime member Malachi-Wilkerson hacked into my account and transferred $1,000 into my spending account that already had $700.25 in it. Then he took $1,709.00 and used the send money to a friend feature to transfer it into his Chime account. When I saw that on my app my whole positive outlook for the future looked pretty grim.

I contacted Chime right away that morning. The guy I spoke to said I needed to fill out some paperwork to file a claim of erroneous transfers. He also suggested that I file a police report because it was clear that the money was stolen from me. After I send in all the paperwork it will take Chime up to 10 business days to get me a provisional credit. He reassured me that I will get this provisional credit. I believed him and followed up with Chime via phone or email nearly every single day until day 10.

On day 10 I spoke with someone else with Chime. He said that he couldn’t get me any information on the investigation on my claim. He also informed me that they were not going to reach a decision until midnight. I thought this was pretty strange for a bank.

The next day I received the following email from Chime.

Account Number: 156127465086
Claim ID: 251843
Dispute Type: C2C UT
Date Error Reported: August 07, 2019
Claim Amount: $1709.00

Hello Cascia Talbert, This letter is to inform you that we have made a final determination regarding the claim referenced above. Based on our investigation, we have concluded no error occurred. Therefore, no funds will be credited to your account and this claim is considered closed. You may request a copy of the documents we used in determining the final outcome of the investigation. If you would like to request copies of the documents, or have further questions, please contact us at [email protected].

Sincerely, The Claims Resolution Team

My heart sank. My first thought was, “There goes Christmas.” I attempted to contact Chime right away, but I wasn’t able to get through because they closed my account. My phone number was linked to my Chime account so when I called it went to a computer. The computerized voice said, “Your account has been closed. Goodbye.”

I had to use my daughter’s phone to call them back. It took me a while to get someone on the phone. He said I could dispute the outcome. I took all the action necessary to to this. I did not get the paperwork from Chime to file the dispute so I filed a claim with the BBB instead. Chime responded but did not fix the issue. So I took it a step further and hired an attorney. I am hoping and praying that I will get my money back.

Part of the money that was stolen from me was to fund my websites, hosting, domain renewals etc. My main website, my bread and butter so to speak is one of them. My Chime account was linked to my PayPal account and when my PayPal balance was too low to pay for fees to keep my sites online it was supposed to get charged. The secondary account was my family checking account. The only reason why I had that account linked was so I could pay myself.

After my Chime account was closed I had a string of bad luck with the Healthy Moms Magazine. The advertisement sales suddenly stopped. My traffic started to decrease. And I didn’t know what to do. I implemented some more advertising options in my site hoping to sell a different kind of ad space, but it didn’t help. I witnessed the money in my PayPal account disappear quickly. When that happened our family bank account got charged when I had to pay a vendor.

When Chris saw business transactions on our family checking account he panicked and moved his paycheck over to a different bank account. I got angry and we nearly separated over this. He blamed me for all of our financial troubles and the kids and I were ready to kick him out of the house.

Fast forward to September. I have just started to sell more advertising space on my site. Things are looking up. However, I owe GoDaddy nearly $500 for hosting fees. They have suspended my account and the Healthy Moms Magazine is offline. I recently set up a new business checking account, but I only have $30 in there. It is going to take some time to fill it up. I am not ready to link it to my PayPal account yet. Chris and I closed our old family checking account and opened up a new one with another bank. I am not linking that with my PayPal account either.

This morning when I noticed that my main website was down I was ready to disappear and give up. Depression is real. I don’t know what to do. I am also in charge of paying for groceries for next week, but I only have $30. I don’t know what to do. Did I say that already?

I contacted GoFundMe to inquire about whether or not I can set up a GoFundMe page to raise some money to get my site back online. I don’t know how long it will take for a response from them. I need help.

In the meantime I am going to paste this all over.

AvonCrystalLake.com and CJsfunandgames.com are also at risk of going down. Thank you for reading this.