It was supposed to be an ordinary day—just another quick trip to the local Dollar Tree in Texas. Little did I know that what started as a simple shopping errand would quickly spiral into one of the most bizarre and epic credit card mysteries I’ve ever experienced.
The Day It All Went Down: A Normal Trip Turns Strange
I had my day planned out perfectly: run some errands, grab a few essentials from Dollar Tree, and head back home. As I walked through the aisles, tossing a few cheap but necessary items into my cart, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. No big deal, probably just a text or some random notification, I thought.
But when I casually pulled out my phone, everything changed in an instant.
“$200 transaction approved on your Apple Card.”
Wait… $200? That’s when the confusion began to set in. First, why would I be getting a notification for a $200 purchase while shopping at a store where everything costs a dollar? And second, the charge was from Target—a store I wasn’t even in. My brain was scrambling to figure out what was going on, but none of it made sense.
I wasn’t at Target. I always use my Target RedCard when I shop there. And yet, somehow, my Apple Card had been charged for a hefty $200 purchase. My heart started racing—this was not your average card transaction.
The Plot Thickens: How Did It Happen?
Still standing in the Dollar Tree, I quickly opened my Apple Wallet app to investigate the charge. That’s when things got even stranger. The transaction wasn’t just from any Target location—it was from Missouri, a state hundreds of miles away. I was in Texas, holding both my physical Apple Card and my iPhone, which was signed in with my iCloud account. For someone to use my card, they would have needed either the physical card or my phone, and yet, both were securely with me.
It was like someone had tried to rob a bank but had no way to open the vault.
Panic began to set in. How could this have happened? Had my card been cloned? Was someone hacking into my account from across the country? I stood there, cart half-full of $1 items, trying to wrap my head around this strange new reality. The questions swirled in my mind as I hurried to the checkout counter, eager to resolve this bizarre mystery.
The Call to Action: Goldman Sachs to the Rescue
As soon as I left Dollar Tree, I knew I had to take action. This wasn’t just a random charge—this was $200 that I had never authorized. And as much as I wanted to believe it was some glitch, I couldn’t afford to leave it unchecked. I immediately called Goldman Sachs, the issuer of my Apple Card, and got connected with a customer service agent.
After waiting on hold for what felt like hours (though it was only a few minutes), I started explaining the situation to the agent. My voice was tinged with urgency as I described how I had been hit with a $200 charge from a Target store in Missouri, while I was clearly shopping for discount items in Texas.
The agent, clearly as perplexed as I was, assured me that they would investigate. I held my breath, praying the mystery would be resolved quickly, and that this wasn’t a sign of something more serious.
The Epic Twist: The Disappearing Transaction
Just as the agent started digging into my account, I opened my Apple Wallet app to review the charge once more. And then—poof—just like that, the $200 charge vanished. One minute it was there, staring me down like a suspicious stranger, and the next minute it was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place.
I stared at my phone in disbelief. The agent, still on the line, checked my account and confirmed that the mysterious $200 Target transaction had completely disappeared from the system.
“What?” I muttered in shock. “How does that even happen?”
The agent was just as baffled, but she reassured me that if the charge had been fraudulent, it had likely been flagged and reversed before it could finalize. The relief that washed over me was instant. But as I hung up the phone, one question lingered: who had tried to make that purchase? And how did the charge vanish so quickly?
The Mysterious Twist: How Did They Even Try?
Here’s the kicker—whoever tried to make that purchase didn’t just need my card information. They needed my actual physical Apple Card or my iPhone, signed in with my iCloud account. Neither had left my possession. Both my card and phone were safely with me, in Texas, and yet someone had somehow tried to use my Apple Card in Missouri.
It was like a scene from a heist movie gone wrong. Someone had tried to pull off an elaborate scam, only to fail spectacularly because they couldn’t access the “vault.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. It was as if they had reached out to grab the money, but their hands came back empty.
The Lesson Learned: The Strange World of Digital Security
The whole experience left me feeling like I had just dodged a bullet. But it also served as a reminder of just how wild and unpredictable the world of digital security can be. In an age where all of our transactions are linked to apps, cloud accounts, and invisible systems, strange things can happen.
Luckily, my Apple Card, with its built-in protections, caught the issue before it turned into a real problem. But what made the story even more hilarious was the fact that someone had actually gone through the trouble of trying to pull off a $200 Target transaction from a completely different state while I was happily shopping for snacks and knick-knacks at Dollar Tree.
It’s a funny story now, but at the time, it was one of the most nerve-racking things I’ve experienced. Thankfully, it all ended well—and with a good laugh.
So next time you’re shopping at your local dollar store, keep an eye on your phone. You never know when you might be charged for something you didn’t buy, from a store you didn’t visit, in a state you’ve never been to!
This story is based on a true event.
