It happened in aisle 6 in the Kroger store. A woman distracted Ann for a moment, while a man grabbed her wallet and ran away. This happened a couple of weeks ago.
She had her wallet in a large purse, which was in the shopping cart and wide open so the wallet was visible. A women sidled up to Ann and asked if she knew where the Chow-Chow was. Ann took a couple of steps away from her shopping cart. As she pointed toward the Chow-Chow, a man came by and made a “thumbs-up” sign to the woman. Ann immediately recognized that something was wrong: the woman didn’t make a move to reach for the Chow-Chow, and the man motioned to his accomplice as he ran by. Ann quickly went back to her cart and discovered her wallet was missing. She started yelling loudly, “That man took my wallet!” She followed him to the end of the isle but by then he was out of sight.
I was out for a bike ride with a group of friends, and we were just finishing our coffee break at Panera, when Ann called me. Obviously, I could tell she was very upset, but I told her I was only a couple of miles away from my car and could be to the Kroger store in a few minutes. When I got to my car, I called her back to she how she was doing and suggested that I not come to Kroger but rather go home and cancel her credit cards. She agreed that was a good plan.
So, within an hour I had canceled her debit card and her credit card. For these cards, I spoke to a person who assured me that the cards would be canceled and that we would not responsible for any charges. Since I can see on line all transactions as they are posted for both cards, I could tell that the cards had not been used.
While I was canceling the credit cards, Ann talked to the assistant store manager that day. He helped her call the police. Ann described both perpetrators to two detectives who took information for a report. The detectives weren’t very optimistic that the thieves would be caught. By the time I got to Kroger, the detectives were gone. I paid for the groceries and we came home.
Ann tried to remember what was in her wallet. She remembered 4 more credit cards—one from Belk’s, one from JC Penney’s, one from Sears, and one from Steinmart. I called all these places and got almost identical responses from all—everything was automated. All the cards were issued by Syncrony Bank, and I never spoke to a person. Even though I didn’t have the credit card number, I was able to provide enough information for the cards to be canceled. The automated “person” said the cards would be canceled and new cards would be issued.
She also had a Sam’s Club card (not a credit card) and a Kroger card (not a credit card). Also, health insurance card, and a Medicare card. Up until last year, your Medicare number was the same as your social security number. That causes us some concern to know the thieves know her social security number. She also had some checks (possibly only 2) from her mother’s checkbook. Ann is on her mother’s bank account, but seldom needs to write a check so she only had a couple in her wallet. Thank goodness her main checkbook was not in the wallet. But, she didn’t remember that she had any checks in her wallet.
We discovered that she had some checks stolen when we were alerted by email by Ann’s mother’s bank that she had bounced a check. Ann’s sister, Kay, and I both have on line access to monitor that bank account. When I learned that a check had bounced, I went on line to discover that two checks had been written—one for a bit over $1200 and one for over $1400. The checks were written to Sam’s club. As you may know, you can’t get into Sam’s Club store without a Sam’s card, but, of course, the thieves had Ann’s Sam’s card. The robbery didn’t cost Ann’s mother any money, because she didn’t have that much money in her account at that time, so the first check bounced. When we told the bank that some checks were stolen, they refunded the fee for a bounced check. Kay eventually closed that account and opened another account to be sure we had no further problems.
Although we had canceled all the credit cards within an hour or so of the theft, the thieves were able to use one of the cards anyway. We discovered this when we received an email alert from Equifax—one of the three big credit reporting companies in the country. These credit companies receive information any time something changes about your credit. For example, when you pay your credit card bill, Equifax will send an alert that the balance on that card when from $XXX to $0. Ann received a free subscription to the Equifax alert system, when some of her information “may” have been compromised. I think it was when lots of information, including Ann’s, was hacked from Target a year or so ago. Nevertheless, we received an alert from Equifax that Ann’s Penney’s account changed from $0 to ~$1200. That caught my attention, because I had canceled that card 4 days before. These charges were made at Walmart.
I immediately called the fraud department for the Penney’s card. At first, the person I talked to offered apologies for our loss but said we had not canceled the card immediately after learning that is was stolen. I won’t go into what I told this guy, but after checking for several minutes with others he finally said that he could see that the card had been canceled promptly using the automated system, but it was not actually canceled for several days later. He assured us that we would not be responsible for the charges. Since then, we have received a bill showing that we owed the money, and the next day we received another bill showing we owed nothing.
By the way, she had $65 cash in her wallet. But, if I charged very much per hour for the time I spent clearing this up, it would be a lot more than $65.
Some lessons
Crime pays. As far as I can determine the thieves made off with about $4000 for their efforts. The detectives called Ann a couple of days later with an update. No, they had not found the thieves, but they might check with Kroger to get the surveillance videos to help in their investigation. Yes, they sometimes do catch some of the thieves. However, the thieves usually make bail and are out on the street the next day.
Be careful. Don’t provide an opportunity for the thieves to have easy access to your purse or wallet. A couple of days ago we spoke to the manage of our Kroger store. He says that he admonishes people all the time to not leave their purse in the cart and walk away. He often tells them of the risks of that behavior. He said that some appreciate the advice, and some get huffy as if to indicate that it is nobody’s business how they shop. I’m pretty sure they haven’t had their purse stolen yet.
Memorize what is in your wallet. Ann knew almost everything. That allowed us to act quickly to cancel credit cards. She didn’t remember the checks, but that really didn’t matter. If we had known about the checks, we would have had the bank stop accepting checks. But, for all intents an purposes, that’s what they did. The checks bounced. Sam’s Club is who lost money.
Be vigilant and wary. This is good advice for all. You never know who might try to do you harm.
[stextbox id=”black”]How about carrying a gun? No, not a good idea in this case. First, the thief might have stolen the gun, had it been in your purse by your wallet. Then, the thief could have shot you with it. Second, it all happened so fast that you would not have had time to retrieve the gun and shoot. Third, if you did shoot, you could have killed or wounded an innocent person. Fourth, even if you could have shot and wounded or killed one or both of the thieves, would you have wanted to? Then, the rest of your life you would carry the burden of wounding or killing someone for $65. No, please don’t carry a gun.[/stextbox]
A couple of days ago, we were in Kroger and by chance we saw the store manager as we entered the store. Ann mentioned to him that she was the person who had her wallet stolen and wondered if he had any information about the crime. He said he didn’t think so (the police usually handle everything) but he would check and catch us before we left. As we were checking out, he came up to Ann and gave her a beautiful flower arrangement. That made her/our day. Of course, it was not Kroger’s fault. But, there is a lesson here. When a business screws up, it is often the way they handle the situation that is remembered. If they seem to go out of their way to make things right (even if they can’t), that’s what will often be remembered.
