Other places haven't been pushing the chip cards? Our bank sent them out a few months ago and set a deadline to change to it. New account #s on the cards for everyone. I used to know my card # and now I don't but I've been glad to have the card. Not everyone has the readers, they are shockingly sparse (and less common oddly in the city than my extremely rural town) but at least with my bank you have the card.

I'm so sorry that you're going through this. I had someone attempt to buy an industrial meat grinder with my credit card # a few years ago. It didn't go through because I can't afford industrial meat grinders and the company sent a letter explaining why my order wasn't processed which notified me. But it was overwhelming to deal with and I would never want my worst enemy to have do that.