Extreme banking with Sam in the international marketplace, or how I got another 100 gray hairs in the last 24 hours

Last night I sat down to the computer to do a little scanning and the first document that opened up told me that Sam had scanned the front and back of his bank card and driver's license for Avangate -- something akin to PayPal in Canada.

I haven't scrambled so hard in a 24-hour period since he left his wallet on a chair in the waiting room at the dentist's office. That day, someone picked it up and bought gas in Gainesville, about 30 miles away, before we could cancel the card. And Sam had realized the error within the hour.

We did all the usual things -- fraud alerts, card changes, getting the driver's license re-issued.

This time, I wasn't so concerned about Sam having made an error, but that he had left himself too vulnerable.

His intentions were spot on. He upgraded us to OS Lion. We needed Tuxera NTS, a file system that lets the Mac get backed up on an external drive. And probably some other amazing tasks that Sam knows that I don't.

But Tuxera is in Finland. So he had to pay through Avangate. The bank blocked it. That's an international transaction. Avangate sent him an email with several ways to get the payment through. He chose the offline pay and cajoled the bank into authorizing it. Everything seems to have gone through alright.

But, Hey, Martha. I tell ya. If that information got in the wrong hands, someone could drain his bank account.

I went to the bank and ordered him a new bank card. He applied for a credit card. As the good guys at DATCU said, better he shops with the bank's money than his own.

I agree. He manages his money well enough that I know it will be paid off at the end of each month.

Then I called a good friend who I know has LifeLock. She explained it. I persuaded Sam to sign up.

Maybe the rest of us can get in the ring and fight the financial fraud matadors, but Sam is just too much like Ferdinand for that.