Card Thieves

A few weeks ago my girlfriend's credit card account started racking up bogus charges. $211 at a Wawa in BFE, Virginia. $110 at a Walmart in Wilmington, NC. Everything in total for her was ~$500 in about 24 hours. The bank's fraud alert system caught it at that point. A few phone calls later and now her accounts are ok and the bank is investigating it themselves.

Yesterday I found out my bank card was getting the same types of bogus charges: a $7 "test" charge and then 4 subsequent $105 charges at Walmart in Williamsburg, VA when I was actually on vacation in Bethany Beach, DE making legitimate charges. Fun! My g/f and I think they bought 4 $100 items to hawk on ebay.

Here's the key to why I'm not worried: She and I are cross referencing our statements and sending the findings to the relevant authorities. We're pretty sure the card was double-swiped somewhere, the number sold off, and a new card manufactured with a different name on the card attached to my account.

Our cross-references will help to find the first guy (or girl). Really, that person deserves a punch in the face. Some jail time wouldn't hurt; s/he probably wouldn't get a job working with money for a very long time either.

For the middleman who bought the number and sold the card: cut off his/her thumbs. Well, maybe just the thumb on the dominant hand. Next time s/he commits a crime, cut off the other one. Third time, both feet. Oh and let's be nice about it and use anesthetics. I only have these feelings towards the middleman because usually it's a coward who's the hardest to catch since s/he is never on camera or in public when doing the crime.

Finally, we're to the end user of the card. In my g/f's case, it appeared the person simply used the card for everyday spending: groceries, going out to eat at Olive Garden and Waffle House, gas for the car (or RV...); additionally it was very spread out which means it could be anything from a broke vagrant to gram and gramps on their retirement road trip. In my case, this thief was very obviously simply trying to rape the account as fast as possible: hard to catch in the moment, yet I'm sure Walmart has cameras. In either circumstance, I'd say simple jail time suffices. These people obviously have no motivation in life to make it on their own.

The suspect restaurant of origin is a Mexican restaurant that's less than a mile from my house; it's the only restaurant we frequent enough for both of us to have paid for a meal. It's a same too; I really liked their fajita quesidillas.