Keep your purse zipped

Had a rather bad day yesterday. Took my wife to a mall that we haven't been to in years to get some special shoes for her soon to be picked up orthotic inserts.

She found shoes that should be able to accommodate the inserts and her toe that is swollen with arthritis. So got 2 pairs. After paying with a credit card, she remembered the 10% discount coupon that the specialist had given her, so she ended up using her card twice. This detail becomes important later in the story.

We were at home home eating lunch when one of the credit card companies phoned us and asked about a transaction that was out of character. It seems that there were cash withdrawals made with a PIN # after we were at home. A frantic search for her wallet pointed out that it was missing. The shoe store reviewed their security video which showed her putting her wallet back into her bag, so that meant it must have been stolen.

Calls to other credit card companies showed the same activity on them as well.

In the mean time our daughter, who is developmentally delayed, told us that she had seen two men walking around the shoe store and one of them was holding his phone up but not making a call. She said that they followed us out of the store and when we left the mall, one of the men put his hand into a bag and then into my wife's purse. She remembered this and told us about it only after we couldn't find the wallet.

The police were called and we were told that someone would contact us next week to open a case file. The officer my wife spoke with said that thieves have now figured out that they could get the PIN numbers by video taping the transactions. When we contacted the credit card companies they said that the charges made with the stolen cards are our responsibility because the transactions were made with the PIN number.
Hopefully if we get a police report number, the credit card companies will accept responsibility for the loss. Oh, the mall says that they don't have any surveillance video at all.
I can understand the credit card companies stand, because it would be easy to report your card stolen and only have given it to someone else to use.

Not sure if the men that my daughter saw will show on the store video. I guess though that the losses are too small for the police to be very concerned.

So two lessons learned, keep your purse zipped and use different pins for each card.

Forgot to mention that all her ID was in the wallet except her passport and social insurance number.

My wife sometimes gets angry with me because I constantly remind her to keep an eye on her purse when she is shopping. putting it in the child seat in the cart and snapping the little seat belt around it is just not enough. When we are shopping together I have her leave her purse on the floor in the back seat of the car. I think it is safer there, unseen, than in the shopping cart.

She was using a bag as a purse and had it on her shoulder.

That is horrible. Here's hoping the card companies will come to their senses.

It is good that the credit card companies record all the customer interactions. On Friday after we learned that the cards had been stolen,we had several different phone calls with the one company establishing the time when the theft had happened. Early Friday night when I called the one company back just to be certain that the card had been listed as stolen, the operated stated that because the pin number had been used that we would be responsible for all of the charges. This was a complete reversal of the earlier comments.
When we returned home on Saturday afternoon, we were told that the credit card company had called and wanted to speak with me. It seems that they had a change of mind or heart and decided to cancel all of the charges from Friday, even the one valid one. They also asked if they could send out a new card. So hopefully the other card companies will be as agreeable.

This really is small potatoes in comparison to the hurricane devastation, but still unsettling.

Paul Brubacher said:

It is good that the credit card companies record all the customer interactions. On Friday after we learned that the cards had been stolen,we had several different phone calls with the one company establishing the time when the theft had happened. Early Friday night when I called the one company back just to be certain that the card had been listed as stolen, the operated stated that because the pin number had been used that we would be responsible for all of the charges. This was a complete reversal of the earlier comments.
When we returned home on Saturday afternoon, we were told that the credit card company had called and wanted to speak with me. It seems that they had a change of mind or heart and decided to cancel all of the charges from Friday, even the one valid one. They also asked if they could send out a new card. So hopefully the other card companies will be as agreeable.

This really is small potatoes in comparison to the hurricane devastation, but still unsettling.

Click to expand...

Glad the CC company had a change of heart, Paul. My missus drags me shopping all the time for the sole purpose of guarding her purse and pushing the cart. It was scary to hear how the CC company was trying to weasel out of responsibility for the charges. That's always been a big selling point with them. Of course between massive security breaches like Equifax, CC skimmers on ATM's and guys video taping your transactions it seems it's only a matter of time before we all get ripped off in one way or another.

Ted Calver said:

Glad the CC company had a change of heart, Paul. My missus drags me shopping all the time for the sole purpose of guarding her purse and pushing the cart. It was scary to hear how the CC company was trying to weasel out of responsibility for the charges. That's always been a big selling point with them. Of course between massive security breaches like Equifax, CC skimmers on ATM's and guys video taping your transactions it seems it's only a matter of time before we all get ripped off in one way or another.

Click to expand...

Due to her health issues my wife doesn't drive any more and if she goes shopping I have to drive and usually wind up carrying the purse ... just wish she would get one that matches my outfits better.

On purses: My wife takes a small purse with her in her car so she can keep her wallet, phone and whatever else corralled. When she goes into a store, she takes only the card she needs, putting it in the pocket of her jeans or shorts.

Credit cards: We use Discover for almost all CC purchases, including some recurring charges each month. They have developed some great security procedures over the years and have called us a couple of times to ask about transactions that didn't seem to fit our pattern. The first thing they do is assure us we won't be charged anything. They also don't pay the merchant who took the illegal transaction. The last time that happened was a couple years ago. We had spent a few days in Apalachicola, FL and got a phone call from Discover shortly after returning home. Someone had used our card number to attempt to buy gas but it was rejected due to not having the security code. The same day, that person had made two transactions at a Tractor Supply store more than a hundred miles from our home. At TS, there was one transaction just under $500 and another for around $250. Sounded like a clerk aided the fraudulent transaction by splitting it. In any case, TS didn't get their funds from Discover - hope they caught the offender!

Rennie Heuer said:

My wife sometimes gets angry with me because I constantly remind her to keep an eye on her purse when she is shopping. putting it in the child seat in the cart and snapping the little seat belt around it is just not enough. When we are shopping together I have her leave her purse on the floor in the back seat of the car. I think it is safer there, unseen, than in the shopping cart.

Click to expand...

Whenever I go to Wally World (and we have a pretty nice/tame one), I always strap my purse in the child seat. I figure if I'm not looking and someone wants to run off with it, they willl get a big surprise when the purse doesn't go with them and they will certainly be in remorse of facing the wrath of Sharon.

Yesterday, Brent was making fun of me for not wanting to take a purse to the Reno Air Races. I never like to take one to concerts, big venues, etc.. If I can't fit my Driver's License, Medical Card, Credit Card, cell, keys, money in my pockets, I better change clothes and wear cargo shorts.

Have to be viligent out there. I just signed up on my credit cards to get an email and text any time my cards are used. Brent has had so many frauds, it isn't funny.

There are people who put out ads for people to make money working (different things). What they have done is to get a bunch of people, take them to a different state/city, etc and take their ID's. They teach and make those people steal wallets/CC/DC, etc. and pass it off to another person, who then gets the information. Others will watch for uses and try to capture the pin's. If they get caught, they get left in that state and the others get loaded up and moved elsewhere.
That is all I can say on that.

My wife got a call from the police on Tuesday, so we now have a report number.
We'll get this number to the CCs soon. The one company has changed its story about responsibility for the loss about every time we called. Another said that we would be responsible until we gave them a police report number.
They all seemed eager to send out replacement cards.

So we'll have to wait until the next statements arrive to see the final outcome.