[Magdalen] Disappearing money - please pray

[Scott Knitter]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Roger Stokes
<roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I can recall a couple of occasions when I have interacted with the bank's
> anti-fraud team.  One was when I was making a large purchase and they rang
> the shop to ask to speak with me.  I answered their questions and they
> aithorised the sale.  The other was when my card had been cloned in the US
> and a couple of transactions were seen as possibly fraudulent.  They rang
> me, I assured them I had not made these purchases and they did not appear on
> my bill.

Some years ago a Vietnamese electronics theft ring tried to buy a
laptop online with my debit card. What saved me was the fact that they
entered the order at the beginning of a holiday weekend for the
computer shop in New Jersey. As the town where the shop is has a lot
of Italian-Americans, they do close for Columbus Day, so I had time to
flood the shop with emails and voice mails imploring them not to fill
the fraudulent order and letting them know I had not placed it.

By chance, I happened to be able to use the information from the
order-receipt email to find out a name and address in Orange County,
California, and I emailed the local police about the fraud, sending
them a copy of the order. A detective actually went to the address and
discovered an apartment filled with computers they had ordered this
way, and they arrested the ringleader. Several court appearances later
(I was relieved they didn't need me to go to OC and testify), the guy
got some big fines, restitution, and community service. I was sort of
surprised no jail time. But I was glad to have had time to get in
front of the order process and prevent having money sucked out of my
account or held in abeyance for any length of time.


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA