Conversational Benefit

My credit card was stolen and used to fraudulently obtain over $700 in goods and services via 11 different swipes last week. But there's good news. Because of my friendliness toward the thief before the theft, I'm working with police to build what may end up being a strong case against her.

Here's the scheme that I foolishly stepped into: I stop in at a chain hair-stylist store. You know the ones that have great hours and great location and cheap prices...but they have very high turnover so you miss out on developing a steady relationship with the person who cuts your hair. So, I was next in line for the next available stylist and it turned out to be someone completely new to the store.

Rarely, if I'm not in a particularly good mood, I may just sit quietly and have my haircut with no attempt at conversation. But this day was not one of those occasions. As I asked about the busyness of the afternoon and whether it was typical, she volunteered that she was new. So I asked whether she was new to town or whether she had been cutting hair locally for a different store. She told me where she used to work in the big mall roughly 12 miles down the highway (a couple of communities away).

After she finishes my trim, we proceed to the checkout stand and she takes my card. She then produces a receipt for my signature which I return to her and she hands me my receipt. I didn't catch that I had not received my card back, and I didn't ask for it, so she didn't give it back.

If I had asked for it, she could have...without looking remotely suspicious...said, "oh yes, here it is, sorry about that."

I go home for the evening and the next morning notice that my card is not in my wallet. When I go back to the store, the stylists on duty cannot find any sign that anything had been left in lost-and-found fashion for me. They call my stylist at home who conveniently doesn't recall the transaction at all, and suggests that if I paid with a card, she would have put it on the counter with my receipt and that if I didn't pick up my card while picking up my receipt, then maybe another customer or employee found it and kept it. So she's innocent, right?

Wrong.

I call the shop in the mall that she had mentioned and asked enough questions and shared enough of my story with her former manager to get plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting that I was not the first of her victims. Also, the former manager volunteers to provide a statement to any police agency who may be following up on my case or a similar case which was started a few weeks ago...around the time that this girl's employment had been terminated.

I've learned a lot about stolen credit card situations...Visa's fraud department, my local bank's role in providing info on the transactions, police reports, follow-up investigations, etc.

From now on, I plan to ask for a copy of a drivers license from anyone who is about to cut my hair.