You pass them everyday going to work, coming home from work, going out for lunch, running an errand, shopping for groceries, hard working people are engaged at earning a living to feed their families and provide shelter for their care. Many lead structured lives dropping children off for day care and then scurrying off to work and working a job that they may or may not like, but they are there and applying themselves to the task. Some get paid on Fridays; others are paid every two weeks, commission sales people are paid when they sell. The self-employed run their own businesses and many meet weekly payrolls. Whether, employed as an auto mechanic, a nurse, custodian, grocery check out, firemen, policemen, truck drivers, pilots, all are working hard throughout the country and all with a seeming bulls eye on their fore head screaming hit me here.

Americans are one of the most productive work forces in the world. The American work force makes things happen. Much pride and satisfaction is achieved through work. Americans work hard for their money. That makes it tough when some scumbag decides to take their money with a slight of hand using the electronic cloak of a thief’s persona. Rationalizations are heard all the time from the convicted felons that the credit card companies make a lot of money and almost deserve to be ripped off. This uttered by a person who has not made the commitment to make and to perform an honest day’s work. Many cards have a $50 liability limit if the credit card Company is called right away. However, what happens when the credit companies are not called right away? Well, it depends on the card limit of course.

Thieves have found a wrinkle around that by giving the cardholder a feeling of comfort using a slight of hand. This allows the thief time to run the card up. Again, rationalization abounds in this act. Acting in concert, the card is lifted and either sold for cash or used by the thief. A few examples follow:

At a college intramural building a student was playing a pick up basketball game. He had carefully changed and placed his valuables in a locker with a key lock. After working out for two hours and racking up several outside three pointers the game was over. Upon returning to the locker room he discovered the locker to have been left ajar and not locked. Quickly checking his valuables, all the credit cards and cash were there and everything appeared in order. He thought it strange, but nothing was missing. Three days later, the credit card Company called and stated that several thousand dollars in purchases had been made on his card. He carefully looked at his wallet again and this time he pulled out all his credit cards and carefully looked at each one. Low and behold the cards had different names, although the same bank logo, and were all expired. So it appeared that the thief had broken into his locker and substituted some bogus cards and bought a few days to max out the cards in low dollar purchases to stay under the radar of detection. If he had called the credit card Company right away, the card would have been cancelled. Through use of the substitution with the bogus cards the thief was able to buy time to complete the ruse. Oh, because the theft was not reported right away, the cardholder was on the hook for most of the money. Americans work hard for their money.