Help Take a Bite Out of Crime...

Who knew that Rockland County could be such a hotbed of criminal activity? I got a rather strange voicemessage the other day from the Grandfather. Something about a police detective and identity theft. I checked the internet to see if the number he had left actually was the police department and instead it appeared to be some sort of strange financial company up in Rockland. I immediately assumed it was some scammy thing targeted at old people. Gave him a call back and it turns out the phone number from the message was one digit off. With the correct digit it actually did lead me to Dectective Dan of the Clarkstown PD. It turns out somehow or another my American Express card number was stolen. This is doubly unfortunate as I had actually had the account long enough that the number was memorized which comes in handy when placing phone orders... (not to mention that I had the card longer than both Beyonce and Tina Fey... at least according to those ads that AMEX does nowadays) Not only was the card stolen but it was used to buy an $80 Metrocard and then encoded onto a Target gift card wherein the "identity theft ring" attempted to use it at the Palasaides Mall. According to Det. Dan this happened not only to me but to seven other poor schlubs with Amex cards. The folks at Amex were also semi-stymied as they couldn't figure out from cross-referencing everyone's charges where the numbers may have been lifted from (as alas, we were all from various states, not just in the Northeast). Turns out five people were in this "gang" including two ladies from Brooklyn. The good officers of the Clarkstown PD arrested the gang after searching their car and finding the aforementioned "re-encoded" gift cards, now the perpetrators are in jail and I've been requested to send up an affidavit confirming that I don't know any of the accused nor did I authorize them to use my card. Geesh!