Don’t Use That Stolen Debit Card In Front Of Woman You Stole It From

(Alyssa)

We’ve heard numerous stories over the years of someone having their debit card stolen and then watching online in horror as their account was drained while waiting for someone at the bank to pick up the phone. But here’s a story of a woman who was able to nab the thief of her debit card — because he tried to buy $200 worth of toys with it right in front of her.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the woman had noticed her debit card was missing while shopping at the supermarket.

She initially figured she must have dropped it by accident earlier in the day, but a few minutes later while buying some headache medicine at Family Dollar, she spotted a man, woman and their child “shopping like it was Christmas…I looked at them grabbing toys and thought, ‘Someone hit the lottery.'”

Sensing something suspicious, she got behind the man in line at the cashier and watched as he tried to pay for the $200 in toys with her custom-designed Wells Fargo debit card.

“I said, ‘Dude, that’s my card. Give me my card please,’” she tells the AJC. “He says, ‘This is my wife’s card.’ I said, ‘No the hell it isn’t. Not with a picture of me, my daughter and puppy on the front. Give me my card.’”

She said the man, whose pre-teen son looked on in confusion, placed his thumb over the incriminating photo on the card while the card’s rightful owner called 9-1-1.

The woman says the man took his son and exited the store, saying “Come on and run” to the youngster and the woman waiting outside the store.

They fled on foot but the man was eventually apprehended by police. The victim’s debit card was still in his possession.

The man claimed that he’d found the card on the ground outside the grocery store. He also admitted to having used it and asked police if he could just repay the woman for the purchases he’d made, which included a case of beer from a nearby gas station.

According to the AJC, the man also had another person’s debit card on him at the time he was caught.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist