My credit card number was stolen... can you figure this out?
When I was about to go out skiing on March 19, I got a text which made my heart sink.
The main credit card I use -- one attached to a ton of auto-bill stuff -- was being used fraudulently. The text said that there was a suspicious $9 charge at sears.com. I knew that wasn't mine.
I went online to look, and it turned out that there were 4 such charges, three of which were at sears.com, and the last at kmart.com. Two of the three Sears charges were for over $200.
I reported the card number stolen, a new one is being sent, and the charges are being reversed. I will have to update all the billing sites. Pain in the ass.
Today I called to investigate, hoping to get the info on the thief or his accomplices. I did this successfully in the early 2000s and threw a huge wrench into a credit card theft ring based out of Armenia and Maryland. I harassed the ringleader to the point where he finally changed his number (which he had been using to verify scam info), and he was furious, cursing me out.
sears.com utilizes a Philippines call center. For once that was a good thing. I knew they'd be far less guarded about giving up info to me. Often when you report stolen credit cards to merchants, they refuse to give you the ordering info.
The Philippines gave me everything.
At first I thought I hit paydirt. Then I realized that the people set to receive the stolen merchandise were also likely victims.
Here are the shipping addresses (partially redacted by me):
Darin H****r
304 T***r Ave Miami#103
Peru, IN 46970
Michelle H***s
25322 R*****g O** Rd Lake#069
Sorrento, FL 32776
I looked up both of these people.
Darin works at Chrysler, just recently framed his diploma to post in his office, and is in his early 50s.
Michelle runs a small company with her husband involving equipment for street repairs, and is in her 40s.
Both addresses are real, and are associated with those two people. The phone number given for Darin was fake, but Michelle's was real.
Neither is a likely accomplice to credit card fraud.
The items shipped to Darin include a cheap kid's backpack and a Craftsman mechanic's tool set worth about $220.
The items shipped to Michelle include another cheap backpack, and a Kenmore vacuum, worth about $240.
Notice the bolded part of each address -- the "Miami#103" and "Lake#069". Neither of those are a part of the real address. It must be some kind of code.
It is now my theory that one of two things are happening:
1) The package is being picked up off the porch of the address where it's being shipped, and then re-shipped to a different address according to the code listed. Perhaps these are being sold on eBay, and "Miami#103" is a code for the actual address of the eBay customer to re-ship the package. The person at the original address likely does not know the package was even coming to them.
-or-
2) Someone goes online later and changes the shipping address at the last minute, again according to the code listed.
I can't figure out what else this could be. Surely there's an endgame here, with ordering this merchandise to be shipped to two entirely different locations.
What about the billing name, address, e-mail, and phone number?
The e-mail is completey fake. Laughably, it's witteless@spacex.com. Clearly this thief isn't an employee at SpaceX. Presumably there is no e-mail confirmation needed to make the Sears order.
The phone number is also completely fake.
The billing address is fairly close to mine, but there are a few small mistakes. Most notably, the city listed is wrong -- one which sometimes comes up in computer systems because my ZIP code is shared between two cities. So the thief just looked the city up by ZIP code. Not that this means much.
Sadly, this is a dead end. There is nothing I can do to identify the thief. The police will not be interested in this, so I won't bother even trying to report it.
Any idea what's going on here?
