Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

So why not let them help you?

About a year ago, I was called by my credit-card company and asked if I had authorized a charge in some small town in North Carolina. I hadn’t. But rather than simply saying “no” and getting a new card, I said, “hmm… I don’t think so. Tell me more about the charges.” The clerk was able to tell me the address of the merchant, the nature of the charges, the items purchased and even the register from which the charge was made.

We went back and looked at other charges, and found four charges within about an hour in various cities in North Carolina. Google Maps told me where these cities were, and I was able to plot out where the bad guy was going. One of the charges had occurred within 15 minutes.

Using Google street view, I pulled up a picture of the offending shop and looked up the address. I called each store and had them tell me whatever they could recall about the person making the unauthorized charge. A gas station had video, which I asked them to preserve. I then looked up the name and telephone number of the local sheriff’s office and called them and asked them to look at the surveillance videos at the three stores.

I asked the credit-card company not to put a hold on my card but to put an alert on it, and to text me each time it was used (for about four hours—and then cancel the card).

As a result of this brilliant detective work, nothing at all happened. Nobody was caught, nobody was arrested, nothing. But I felt a lot better, and I was willing to try to find the “thief.” I doubt that Bank of America would have done the same thing for what amounted to a few hundred dollars of charges.

A similar thing happened about 10 years ago, when I was called by Citibank about a mortgage I had apparently applied for in a city about 40 minutes away. When I told the bank it was unauthorized, they refused to provide me with any additional information about the application—citing the privacy of the thief—until I called them back, playing dumb, and “asked about this mortgage I applied for.” I was able to get the address the thief used and the other personal information that person supplied (my social security number, but that person’s other information), and even went to the post office in that person’s city and put in a change of address form for myself (any mail addressed to me at that person’s address would be rerouted back to me at my real address).

Immediately, I started getting credit-card and other applications that person had requested. Long story short, the information had come from an affinity card I had applied for, and the bad guy had stolen hundreds of social security numbers.