Being called a liar

[Elhuero]

OK, I recently ordered some Jeep parts, and had to give my credit card info over the phone. I'm certain that a co-worker in the next cubicle overheard me (only about 3-4 feet away, behind a cubicle wall), wrote the info down, and then went shopping. Several purchases and attempts were made, all stuff that's directly in-line with his interests. There's also reasons why I think he'd do this to me.

My bank detected the abnormal activity, and flat-out blocked several of the purchases, then called me in under 24 hours to discuss what was going on. The two purchases that did go through have been credited back to me.

I've filed a police report, and filled in my manager about my suspicions so he won't be blindsided by what might happen. Still haven't heard from the police yet, but it's only been a couple days.

Now, do I have a chance in hell of ever seeing anything happen with this? Or am I just screwed? Granted, I'm not out any money because all purchase attempts failed, but a crime was still committed against me.

Seems to me it shouldn't be hard for the po-po to get the info from the merchants about what was ordered, who ordered it, and what address it was supposed to go to. If he DID do this, it shouldn't be hard to connect him to it. He was essentially ordering gifts for a girlfriend of his.

a brick thru his window should even things out

[Hoosier]

@rondog -- if you got refunded or no money was lost to you, then the victim is the bank that secures your credit card, as they're liable for any charges, AFAIK.

As for backups, I'll add my suggestion, use a digital camera or page scanner to scan receipts, take pictures of serial numbers, store all important data. Use a program called http://www.truecrypt.org to create an encrypted file container into which you put these files. Store a copy on your HDD and on a USB thumb drive or external HDD which you keep off site. Could be a bank deposit box, at your office, etc.

H.

[coop68]

I am sorry to hear your fire arms where stolen for the person who started this thread. i would say keeping a record of all your firearms and even updating them often when you add a part or scope. I use a program that I received from a LE friend and shooter, it stores all my gun info plus I have a written log in my safe and backed up file on my external hard drive Plus pictures. This is just me I am guessing a few of us here do the same or perhaps after this thread will be.
Story:
When I was doing an internship for the local police department at my college we got an email about a gun that was pawned that matched a report of a stolen rifle out of a safe. Pawn shops here in NE are required to turn in tickets of items they buy, it just so happened the models matched and this was an odd rifle you don’t see often. We went to the extent of going to the shop and looking at the rifle unfortunately the numbers didn’t match up. But my questions to are LE members does Colorado have a similar system? I do know here that if your item is stolen and sold to the pawn shop the owner has to pay the pawn shop for whatever they paid for your item in order to get it back which sucks. Being a smaller town things do get looked at more often from my observation. But was wondering if there was something similar? Based on what happened I’m guessing not in Colorado at this time. thought i would ask.

[KevDen2005]

Rondog, glad to hear you got your money back. Basically it comes down to being able to prove it was him. IP addresses can link back to computers/companies, now the hard part is actually proving that the suspect was behind the computer doing that to you. Most of the time I would say without a good investigator pushing for a confession, its not going to happen, especially since mostly everything was blocked and you had your money refunded. If he actually still has those items, without having them in plain view or you seeing them at his house it would be nearly impossible to link him to that, but still possible.

My first suggestion is to make sure you have changed all your account info and your passwords. Keep an eye on that guy and see if you can get any info out of him.

[ronaldrwl]

As a business owner myself I can tell you it's a foolish business that will ship merchandise to an address different from the credit card holders address. If they do, they are talking all the risk. Not only will the money be returned to the card holder, they will pay a "Charge Back" fee.

[Hoosier]

@ronaldrwl You can implement "Verified By Visa" which is basically a PIN number check run by Visa themselves. They guarantee any purchase that they approve via it, I heard.

[68Charger]

Well, just from reading this, you do come off as kind of a liar. Just saying...

Know it all...


I was kinda pissed, guess I'm still not over it, and I over emphasized.. sue me

[rondog]

Rondog, glad to hear you got your money back. Basically it comes down to being able to prove it was him. IP addresses can link back to computers/companies, now the hard part is actually proving that the suspect was behind the computer doing that to you. Most of the time I would say without a good investigator pushing for a confession, its not going to happen, especially since mostly everything was blocked and you had your money refunded. If he actually still has those items, without having them in plain view or you seeing them at his house it would be nearly impossible to link him to that, but still possible.

My first suggestion is to make sure you have changed all your account info and your passwords. Keep an eye on that guy and see if you can get any info out of him.

Thanks! I don't know if he did this online or via phone. From my experiences, ordering online seems more secure because of the fact it nearly always asks for your Billing Address, which if you don't have that you're not going anywhere. Ordering by phone, you just need the card number, exp. date, and 3-digit code on the back. All of which he could have overheard when I ordered my parts. We sit close enough to hear each other fart.

This guy seems to think I'm wealthy for some reason, and he loves to play the ladies. Obsessed with big women, sex and money. He's always acting jealous of the money he "thinks" I have, and always bitching about how much of "his money" he has to spend to charm his way into some hogger's pants. If he had the opportunity to use someone else's money to get himself laid, I can see him jumping at the chance. He seems to think I owe him something, and should fork over cash to "hep a brotha out".

The attempted charges were for wine, flowers, a big-ass teddy bear ($160!), a membership for a meetdemfatbitches.com dating service, and several tries to open Skype accounts. He also got an ass-chewing recently for excessive personal text messaging from "the ladies" on his company-issued cellphone. Skype accounts? Hmmmm.

I'm just thinking that any other thief would have tried to buy big-ticket electronics or something worthwhile, not gifts for some ho.

[theGinsue]

A few bad cops give us a really bad name, the majority of cops will do their job.

Agreed. Most LEO's still try to do their jobo the way it's meant to be performed. Unfortunately it only takes a few bad apples to establish a bad stereotype.

.......rather than what the law really only requires of me.

It's it sad the way things have gone? When the law only requires a half-assed job on behalf of it's LE agencies & citizens have to rely on officers who are willing to above and beyond to get the assistance they need?

KevDen2005, excellent post. Stay safe and best of luck to you in your travels.

+1

a brick thru his window should even things out

Yeah, or even better, 1 brick a week for a month!

[rondog]

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread. AFA the original post, yeah, that's messed up! As ordinary citizens, we certainly should be able to expect more help from LE, I would think. Makes me wonder just what can I do to protect my property. Guess I need to get busy photographing and recording every little detail about all my guns. Better do the knives and bayonets too.

Sure is discouraging to hear that a gun can get stolen, you find it in a pawn shop and tell the police "I found it! Here it is!!!", and then be accused of "stealing" and pawning it yourself. Not to mention you have to pay the pawnbroker for it to get it back? Oh, that would REALLY piss me off!