Fraudulent use

Saturday, 1:27 pm

By Kate

Dec

22

2007

The lad called me early this morning to let me know that he would probably not be home in time to visit the bank, but maybe I’d better do so in a hurry because he lost his wallet on the way home. Preparing to go do a little Christmas shopping, he discovered the wallet was gone. I did a quick on-line check before heading out the door and whaddya know—someone already used his check/VISA card to purchase a $46 tank of gasoline in King of Prussia, PA.

Isn’t it interesting that a tank of gas is the thing that someone would use the card to buy? Maybe not so surprising, really. Gas pumps don’t require any signatures or identification for a credit card transaction. Well, Merry Christmas to someone, I guess.

In any event, I put a stop on his card (since I am also on the account) and ordered a new one. The bank will file a fraudulent use claim for the transaction and refund the $46 to his account sometime in the next week.

It would be just too much to ask for the person who found the lad’s wallet to make an attempt to return it. Not in this day and age. Still kind of amazes me that some people have no hesitation to steal like that. Makes me wonder whether they were really desperate for the money and that overcame any moral considerations or whether it was a case of “Hey, free money! Let’s see how much we can get out of this sucker.”