Apparently, when we travel, one of us has to get their credit card stolen. This time, it was Kristian’s turn. My credit card was used to purchase English lessons and credit reports. Kristian’s was used to purchase…. a pool.
A seven thousand dollar pool.
In Arizona.
How this didn’t end up getting flagged as potentially fraudulent kindof blows my mind a little. I mean, surely AmEx’s algorithms should be able to figure out that, based on the amount of pool supplies that we already purchase, we don’t need another pool. Also, we don’t live in freaking Arizona. And we’re certainly not in the habit of gifting other people with pools.
Kristian logged into online banking today, noticed that his balance was about $7,000 more than it should have been, remembered that he didn’t purchase a pool in Arizona and then called up AmEx to let them know that they’d been punk’d. They reversed the charges, cancelled his card, sent him a new one and Kristian had a lot of fun with a pair of scissors and some plastic. All that’s left now is to sit back and wonder who in the hell buys a pool with a stolen credit card?! Aren’t pools a little easy to trace? Wouldn’t it be pretty easy to find said credit card thief by going to their address, verifying that the “stolen” pool is still there and then arresting them?
Because that’s totally what I would do.
But I don’t have any fancy law enforcement training or nuthing.
And what do you do with a “stolen” pool? Can pools be repossessed? Does the pool get seized as evidence? I bet that a pool would take up a decent amount of space in an evidence locker. Are fraudulent pools the new Western Union scam? I am full of questions that I somehow doubt I will get answers to. I sincerely hope that AmEx goes after these d-bags hard core. And, if they do, they’d better let us know what the outcome was.
Honestly, who steals a pool?!
Yeah, they aren’t the smartest thieves. That’s crazy!
Yeah, I had a similar experience recently with my Discover card, except the thieves weren’t as ambitious. They only stole about $500 worth of stuff from various low-end stores in Chicago.
Apparently CC thieves aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. Who knew? 😉
Ask AmEx if they rolled over your recurring payments to the new number. If whomever stole the card setup a recurring payment to themselves or a friend, it could continue until you catch it (it’s rare but does happen).
Well, they might get an extra $6500 out of the pool, but that really depends on if they get caught or not!
I never would have thought about recurring payments. I’ll tell Kristian to look into it!
I live in Arizona, Mesa to be precise. I can attest to the low IQ of a good many residents here. I have no trouble believing this. Too bad you didn’t get the address of where the pool was installed.
If I had an address, I would totally send you over to take pictures!