We read about this all the time. We hear that this sort of thing happens. We don’t believe it will ever happen to us. It is rampant. And, guess what? The elderly are being targeted more and more as vulnerable in this area.
Just yesterday I was speaking with a fellow in his seventies or eighties about his recent experience at the Cheesecake Factory in Chandler, Arizona. I was at that meal. There were about a dozen of us there. We had a great time. The service was good. The food was excellent. But, the aftermath was extremely disturbing.
This fellow paid for our meal. He was going to be reimbursed and thought nothing of paying for our lunch with his credit card. About an hour after leaving the Cheesecake Factory, he received a call from the Fraud Department on his credit card. Someone had run up hundreds of dollars in fraudulent charges on that card, which he rarely uses. The first charge was $1 so that the thieves would know the card was still good. That was followed by multiple hundred dollar charges. Now, granted, he ended up not being responsible for any of the charges and cancelled the card immediately. However, the aggravation and vulnerability of being a soft crime victim after such a lovely gathering was completely unsettling.
I see this as the new way to mug people. And quite honestly, the behavior of these “young entrepreneurs” repulses me. I used to work at a couple of restaurants a long, long time ago. It is pretty simple stuff: either the wait staff or the host staff ring through the credit card charges. The managers have access to those receipts as well. Everyone carries a cell phone these days. These phones have cameras and some cell phone owners will get jobs in restaurants where they have access to numerous credit cards. Then they will photograph numerous credit cards, and text message these photos to their scumbag criminal partners during their shift. “It wasn’t me. I was at work.” Scumbags. Thieves. Such repugnant behavior. Shame on the Cheesecake Factory in Chandler, Arizona for not monitoring their employees’ behavior better and for hiring such criminals in the first place.
This sort of thing happened to my mom a couple of weeks ago. She, too, is a bit more seasoned and ripe for these scumbags to steal her information. I suppose it is comforting that she wasn’t mugged in the parking lot of Coldstone Creamery again, or the Bank of America parking lot, like my grandma was a few years back. But, it still makes me angry that she was victimized in this way by some loser. Thankfully, she is very diligent in monitoring her credit card activity online and found these fraudulent charges almost immediately.
I think these scumbags are targeting older people because they don’t think these folks are savvy enough to check their accounts online regularly. And, they also don’t have the intelligent foresight that credit card Fraud units will make a call immediately on an irregular charge.
My point in this post is to warn people, once again, to be careful with your credit cards. If possible, watch the card when you hand it to someone else. Go to the station in the restaurant or store with the card for the swiping of it. Then get it back immediately. And, monitor your accounts online regularly so that you can catch any charges that are not yours. Finally, make a loud stink about this sort of thing if you are a victim and know where the stealing occurred. Shame companies like the Cheesecake Factory in Chandler, Arizona into better business practices.
Comments