Gas Attendant and Credit Card Fraud
February 15, 2008 – 08:00 pmSome of my friends will recall this story if they were with me on Black Friday last year (2007). We were waiting outside of Circuit City and it was about two hours before store opening when I decided to run across the street with a friend, while the others continued to hold our spot in line, to go buy some hot coffee and food from the local AM/PM gas station. While I was checking out of the store, I noticed that the attendant was writing some stuff down on the other side. I couldn’t make it out because there was a wall covering the area he was writing in. I suspected he was writing down my card number and expiration date. Needless to say, he definitely wasn’t adding up my total cost by hand with the futuristic electronic cash register right there, so as I walked out the door, I dialed up my credit card company on my cell phone and had the card canceled. As I went back to the Circuit City line, I told all my friends what had happened.
Today, I spotted a story online regarding a gas attendant who writes down the credit card numbers and expiration dates of his customer’s credit card, then later manually enters them into the charge box to buy gift cards and various stuff for himself. Identity theft and credit card fraud, the same thing I manage to avoid a few months earlier. This only reinforces what I believed earlier. When in doubt, always take the best precaution you can. If you want to read the story on about the gas attendant who got caught, go here:
2 Responses to “Gas Attendant and Credit Card Fraud”
In my country we can opt for SMS alerts whenever the card is used. If you have not used the card, you can immediately call the bank customer care and ask them to decline the transaction.
By Harry on Feb 18, 2008
Thanks for the heads up. I should look into that =]
By Steven on Feb 19, 2008