I was at the live SportsNation show in Times Square on April 25 2012.

Skip to the end for info on my contest.

Backstory

I got out of the Times Square station and headed towards Best Buy to pickup my online preorder for Prototype 2. I saw a setup for the Madden 13 cover unveiling. It seemed it was sponsored by EA and GameStop.

I picked up the game, but there was no steelbook I already planned for this and would check the Best Buy near Columbus Circle. I decided to walk back to the Times Square station to see what they were doing for the Madden event instead of taking the train at Bryant Park.

I saw Colin and Beadle from SportsNation on stage so decided to stick around. I then realized that it was going to be a live SportsNation show!

Later a mid 30s looking black guy in a suit came out. I thought he was an analyst as there usually are "guests" on the show. Maybe 10 minutes later Cam Newton...

Ok here is the last blog for those that need a reminder or don't know the story: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=23707


Now the "new" story:

On Saturday (Mar 10) I go around to several Best Buys and GameStops to prepare for trading in stuff on Sunday including a 360. I made some purchases with my card (small charges like $10) and paid in cash and GCs.


Sunday I find a message from my credit card company's fraud department. I assumed it was because there were many transactions pending since this occurred before when FFXIII-2 released (had to call my card up at a Best Buy ). I had placed several orders for books that weekend and guess they were shipping out. Also some electronics and game stuff as well.


I listed to the message and 3 charges were mentioned: $99.9X, $80.00, $80.0X. The merchant's weren't named in the message but a description was given. The $99.9x charge was dated Saturday...

UPDATE:

I called up the paypal cs number which was a pain. It is completely automated. I finally got a question where requesting an agent was an option.

The CSR was helpful. He asked if I purchased on ebay recently, asked about my other charges, etc. He removed the paypal case and created a new one saying it was a higher priority case now. The limit on my account was removed and said the money would be refunded. So far it hasn't so I'm guessing it'll happen once the new case is reviewed . He also said it is possible the suspect ("R P") may have been compromised as well. We'll see.


Okay I'll start from "the beginning" or when I became aware something was wrong.

About two hours ago I was going to order a game off of Lockerz for my friend since it was at a good price with points discount (SFxT SE for $51 or so). I'm checking out at Lockerz and go to signin to PayPal using email "A" (also...

UPDATE:
Full refund from Bluehost is in process. The domain name has been released so I am (unless someone else registers it) free to "re-register" it.

I am unsure if I should go for separate registrar and web host or someone that does both; I definitely want private registration so personal info does not appear on whois.

The site will be blog format so the web host should be Wordpress compatible. I would like also like to generate some revenue (a lot would be great but that's not realistic starting out).


Original post:
and think I made a few mistakes starting out

A few of my friends and I have been discussing creating a website/blog as an outlet about our prospective careers and projects.

I read that Wordpress is used by many personal sites (mostly blogs). I went ahead with Bluehost's web hosting. The other hosts seemed good as well but the "look" and pricing of Bluehost ...

[Please note that I started this as a draft on October 30, 2008 ]

Ah yes, let me first start off by stating that I do not consider myself a "true gamer". I have not played many video games let alone completed the main game of many of the games I have actually played. Now I really do not fit in the casual gamer category either. I am inclined to align myself as an extremely casual hardcore pseudo-gamer. But enough with this overly elaborate gamer type of mine, I shall delve into this matter in future blogs.

[This is where I continued to complete this entry]

Now the gaming genre I had the least exposure (prior to the incident I am blogging about) was probably fighting games.

During the mid/late 90s, I mainly heard about Mortal Kombat and Tekkan thanks to numerous commercials and even some references on tv. I read about Street Fighter in some magazines and overheard people talking about it.


Okay, enough...