tumwatertaz wrote:
When one of my customers was traveling, he used his card to pay for lunch at some local restaurant, and when he stopped for gas right after that, he found out his card had been switched for a stolen one by the young guy that waited on him. He immediately called the local police, (fortunately he had enough cash to pay for his gas), and he and the policeman went right back to the restaurant where they caught the guy that waited on him, the policeman searched him and his locker and his car, and caught him red-handed with his card (and a few more cards) on him. Thankfully, he got his card back and the policeman arrested the guy.
Think about how many times you may have used a card at a bar or a restaurant when you were traveling and never checked it when they handed it back...pretty scary, huh? If he hadn't stopped for gas right away, he could have been miles away before he found out, he could have possibly got arrested himself for possession of a stolen credit card, his card could have been maxed out, and the thief could have been long gone.
Also, one of my wife's co-workers caught a kid that worked at a pizza place using his cell phone's camera to take pictures of his card and the receipt signatures from the register just by sheer accident, and grabbed the guy's phone out of his hand and yelled for the manager, who immediately called the police. It turns out that the kid's phone was full of picture of cards and signatures, and the pizza place owner was extremely apologetic to my wife's co-worker...and really pissed off at his crooked employee, who was immediately arrested and hauled off to jail.
Now whenever I travel, I try to get cash at an atm before I make any small purchases, and if I have to use my card, I always hand carry it myself to the cashier and check my card and my receipt carefully before I leave.
Credit card theft and identity theft is no joking matter, and me and my wife both have had to go about 15 rounds with our credit card company and our bank before about phony charges to us that we never made or authorized. It took a long time to finally get them removed, get our cards replaced, and everything all straightened out.
It really sucks that there are lots of lowlife people that like to prey on other hardworking and honest people's credit.
Good luck Ben...and I hope they catch the person and lock their sorry thieving butt up.
I think the thing that bugs me the most, is that obviously at some point this &*$% interacted with me, copied my card, and gave it back to me, all the while planning his BS. It just makes me go back in my head and second guess every stranger that I've given my card to in the last couple months.
We are in communication with our bank, but they are reacting slowly, and they've avoided answering the big question, "who gets to eat the charges".