Maybe you noticed yesterday on my Facebook page that I had "Lori Culwell is involved in a sting operation" as my status, and maybe you asked about it, and maybe…..I can describe it to you. Because, what the heck, it’s September 11, and aside from being Gibson’s birthday (happy birthday, Gibson!), we all need something to take our mind off of the obvious depressing-itude of the day, right?
OK, here’s how "The Sting" goes. Tuesday, Stephan is at Trader Joe’s, and his credit card gets rejected. Now, I’m sure you know that I am mentally ill when it comes to paying the bills, so there’s no way one of our cards is getting rejected unless something has gone terribly wrong somewhere.
So– I call the credit card company, and get this! Someone used his credit card number to do some fradulent things, so they shut it down. Whatever, that’s the credit card company’s job, that happens all the time– criminals are always using technology to generate random numbers that they then try to use to buy things, and sometimes they get as far as a real number, but no expiration date or security code, which tips off the credit card, and that’s the system they have in place. The lady from the credit card company actually told me they get so many of these cases that they don’t even prosecute, blah blah blah.
Then she said something she probably should not have said to me, because you know, I write this blog, and I wonder about these sorts of things. She says "hey, we have the numbers of the places where they tried to use the credit card….do you want them? You could do some investigating, and let us know what you find out."
So, of course I say yes, because I think I’m Lestor Freamon from "The Wire," and I go about conducting my own investigation into who it might have been who tried to use the credit card number. This is what I find out:
First stop: credit card fraud guy tries to use credit card to open a Netflix account. Because yeah, recurring billing is a good way to go when you have a credit card number that’s GUARANTEED to be shut down as soon as the people realize you’re using it. Netflix doesn’t even have a number for this, because they denied the transaction based on the fact that the expiration date didn’t match.
Next up: credit card fraud guy tries to register for (I like this) a CONFERENCE ON INTERNET SECURITY. Because, guess what? He’s the kind of criminal who likes to do his homework. He doesn’t get very far, though, because he tries to use Paypal with his fradulent credit card number, and they turn him down. They also don’t have his number, because they don’t capture denied registrations. I’m not even going to mention how much this attempted charge was for, because it’s just RIDICULOUS, and I don’t want to embarrass credit card fraud guy.
Finally (this one is my favorite): credit card fraud guy calls random California newspaper and PRETENDS TO BE DEAF, so he can read the credit card number over the TTY machine. I like this little detail because it’s just so weird, I could never even have made it up. He’s trying to place a "dogs for sale" ad, possibly pit bulls. But— eureka! The newspaper people KEPT ALL HIS INFORMATION. So, they’re sending it to me, and that’s where the sting comes in.
I can’t say too much more on the advice of my attorney (just kidding, it’s my friend from high school), but just as soon as I know more, you know I’ll be posting it here for your amusement. Suffice it to say the sting involves me pretending to try to buy a pit bull.