Registering The Red Flags
I had an idiot ex-friend who took a wallet from a gym locker room and headed straight to Walmart. She was hoping to get there and go on a shopping spree before the victim finished working out and reported the cards missing. Of course, she didn’t know if she was too late already, so she used the card first to buy a pack of gum and was successful.
So, then she went back and loaded up her cart with the most expensive stuff she could find and tried to check out again. But she didn’t realize her huge mistake. Turns out, buying a stick of gum and then buying almost $5,000 in electronics from the same store a second later is a red flag for credit card companies. So, the card came up as possibly lifted.
The clerk told her that, so she tried another one of the pilfered credit cards. They were also flagged since they were part of the same account. As a result, she was starting to draw some real attention from the staff at Walmart, and she panicked. She decided to use her own credit card to purchase the electronics, with the intent of returning them later since her scheme didn’t work.
It was all the authorities needed to get her name and address and ultimately find her.
Story credit: Reddit