Definitely one of the weirdest heists we’ve heard of happened a few days ago in Columbus, Ohio. A serial credit card thief and car break-in suspect is now wanted by the police after smashing the passenger-side window of a parked vehicle, on May 20, then taking the victim’s purse and fleeing.
However, this is where the interesting part comes in: just 15 minutes after the robbery, the suspect used the victim’s credit card to purchase $6,000 in Visa gift cards, at two Gahanna Kroger locations, says NBC4i.
It wasn’t the first time
Due to his way of operating, police believe that he is also responsible for three vehicle break-ins at Rocky Fork Metro Parks. Then, he also used stolen credit cards to purchase Visa gift cards, but they were worth more than $9,000. The purchases were made at area Kroger stores.
“It’s a similar motive where they smash and grab the purse, take the credit cards and go to Kroger purchasing gift cards,” said Kristen McKinley, Central Ohio Crime Stoppers president. “It’s virtually untraceable, so they’re up to what, $15,000 in Visa gift cards.”
Right now, the organization announced that they’re willing to offer a cash reward for any information that could lead to the arrest of the person responsible for this.
How can such events be avoided?
Such unfortunate events can happen when you lose or have your contactless credit card stolen. Basically, the thief can easily access the funds on your card without having any additional information available, due to the contactless function.
As soon as you notice that your credit card is missing, block it as soon as possible, by calling your issuer. As for avoiding having money stolen from your card while the card is in your wallet, use RFID protection. You can opt for RFID wallets or special films, which you can use to wrap your card in. By this, devices used for reading the information on such cards can’t access them.
