Friday, July 3, 2009

Stolen Credit Card... Ugh

A heads up to one and all... you never know when some lowlife can try and steal your credit card. It happened to my wife just yesterday in fact.

She went to a matinee movie with her two nieces and nephew (aged 11 and under), and paid for the tickets with the credit card that she and I both use regularly. Just another day out and about the town.

Turns out, when I got home from work (which was before my wife got back) I got a recorded call on my answering machine from the credit card company saying that my account was frozen due to suspicious activity.

I immediately followed the prompts and found out that about $350 worth of fraudulent charges had been placed in a short period of time, all after my wife had charged her card at the movies (the AMC Neshaminy 24 Theater in Bensalem, PA, for those of you wondering).

The credit card company subsequently closed the account and is now looking into the mischief, once I confirmed that we had not made these charges.

So the lesson learned is that this nonsense can happen anytime, anywhere. My hunch is that the young girl that swiped the card either copied the numbers down, or took a cell phone photo, or texted the info to somebody and then calls were made in rapid succession to try and get "free" stuff. I can't verify this, but hey, be forewarned. Whatever the case, hopefully they catch the idiotic culprits and put them in their place... jail would be nice!