Identity Theft Victim Gets Last Laugh

Ovid writes "Being a bit of a hypocrite, I sometimes whine about privacy in my blog. I do, however, try to be careful about not letting anyone get information about me they shouldn't and I rarely, if ever, use a credit card online. This is why I was surprised to find out one morning that identity thieves had racked up thousands of dollars one two of my credit cards. By early afternoon, I caught them and the police arrested them."

Comments

I was waiting for the twist in the story...

[anthony_dipierro]

What worries me the most is that so many people were so cooperative in trying to find "the thief". You go to Denny's, show them a credit card, and they give you a description of the person who used the credit card? That's the scary part.

That some kid stole a couple thousand dollars from Discover Card and some Visa merchant - so what? This guy acts like they were stealing the money from him.

Re:I was waiting for the twist in the story...

[anthony_dipierro]

Don't you get it? This isn't play money. It's real money that the merchants, banks, and card processors have to cough up.

Actually, it's Denny's food that Denny's has to cough up, and hotel space that...probably would have gone to waste anyway. And as for the Denny's food, I mean, whatever, how much food does Denny's throw away every day anyway?

Higher merchandise prices (or, eroded retail margins, and fewer mom-and-pop retailers as a result), higher bank fees, and higher transaction fees. All of that, all of it, trickles down to the paying consumer in one way or the other.

The $0.00000000001 trickles down to him isn't enough to justify wasting a few hours of his time trying to catch a thief. That's what the police are paid for.

Maybe he had fun playing cop, and hey that's worth it I guess. I dunno.

Thieves like this are taking it from all of us, however indirectly.

Not from all of us. Just those of us who eat at Denny's, or pay exorbitant fees to Discover Card.

Re:I was waiting for the twist in the story...

[anthony_dipierro]

Well, that's just stupid. Tell that to the waitress who served them and didn't get a dime when she could have gotten a real tip from non-criminals.

You don't think the waitress got a tip? I don't see why you'd think that.

One thing that people should realize is that when an anonymous big corporation gets hurt, it's not really a corporation that's getting hurt. It's the stockholders.

I realize this. It doesn't change my argument. If you own stock in a corporation you're completely responsible financially for the actions of that corporation (to the extent of your investment). If you don't like what the corporation is doing, don't buy stock in it.

It's everyone that has a 401(k) or a mutual fund or any other diversified investment. These aren't rich day-traders, these are old people living off this money, or young people trying to save a few bucks for when they can't work any more.

So the $0.50 cheeseburger costs grandma with her 100 shares of a mutual fund which owns Denny's (is Denny's publically traded?) as 0.5% of its holdings $0.000000000005 and costs some rich guy who owns 10% of Denny's $0.005. In the end, I think the world is better for this.

What this guy did was every bit as noble as if he tackled a purse-snatcher.

You mean the guy who stole from Denny's? I wouldn't go that far.

Re:I was waiting for the twist in the story...

[anthony_dipierro]

When I cleaned out my refrigerator today I threw out some food that got shoved to the back and went bad. By your logic it would be okay for some guy to sneak into my house and steal food from my pantry because I waste some of my food.

Sneaking into your house is kind of scary. But stealing food? We're talking about food here. If someone's going to risk going to jail to steal food from me, hell, I'll give her the food voluntarily.

Oh, but wait. I'm a person, not a corporation. There goes your precious double standard again.

No, I certainly don't care if someone steals food from you. Hell, I don't care if someone steals a million dollars from you. There's a double standard for ya.

Not all of us want to depend on the government to take care of our every need.

Huh?

Besides, if you read the article you would see that the police were in no hurry to do anything until he called and told them he knew exactly where they were right that moment.

Apparently they've got more important things to worry about than some dubious report about some idiots stealing money from Denny's. I don't blame them.

Or those of us who purchase products from merchants who accept Discover. Here's a dirty little secret: costs roll downhill to the consumer.

They roll downhill to the stupid consumer. The one that racks up thousands of dollars in debt at 20% interest. If I buy something from a merchant who accepts Discover, it's because the product is worth the price.

Re:It could have been me.

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

Who's the bigger fool

The dumbass who lets his info be stolen by a bastard like you, or the dumbass who hires a criminal to protect him?

Since you've cleaned up your life, how many of your 'clients' have had mysterious thefts of their property? huh? Or theft of their customer's information you pretend to be protecting? huh? huh?

Why else would you brag about having access to so much customer info that is locked down to anyone else?

Once a theif, always a theif don't bother trying to atone, unless your next effort to atone includes jumping into traffic. One of your 'clients' will catch you one day, and it will be back to jail for you.

Re:Canada

[Horse Rotorvator JAD]

I'm married, what's your excuse?

My excuse? Well, your wife had the day off work and actually spent the day over at my crib practicing positions out of the Kama Sutra. So I'm too tired to go out and do anything else but post on Slashdot. I bet your little minx of a wife is purring like a kitten right now though. :-)

Re:Be careful...

[metalhed77]

There's a difference between preparation and romanticizing. The post I previously responded to was clearly the work of someone who was fantasizing and over dramatizing.

Of course, your trite language makes me think that you also inhabit a world with a 'perp' behind every corner and action just around the bend.

"We also live on a planet inhabited by the most dangerous creature in the known universe: Man."

Do you know how cheesy that sounds?

"We want to be able to walk into a place and know that we have a good chance of walking out alive. It's the same mental preparation any number of people go through every day."

Do you know what divorced from reality you are? A gun will not protect you from 99.9999% of the causes of death in america. I'd say that's a fucking good chance.

And your whole attempt to say I was projecting is feeble and without any basis. Seriously, you tag it on as one sentence at the very end, with no supporting evidence. How fucking stupid are you?