If you have lost your credit card and someone has used it, can you find the thief? Yes, here’s how…
Time: 4.30 pm. Venue: A shop at a mall in Kochi city.
She looked at herself in the mirror again. The trousers fitted her perfectly. The grey T too sat on her shoulders well. The whole ensemble was stylish and she was satisfied. But she had little time. Her flight back to Chennai was at 7.30 that evening.
She was praying all the time that the pilfered credit card she would use for payment would go unnoticed like the two small payments she did earlier as a dry run. She mumbled a short prayer inside the trial room and came out smiling. “I will take the two, they fit me perfectly,” she said.
“It’s the latest cut madam. Will you pay by card or cash?” asked the sales person.
“Card, please” she answered keeping her fingers crossed.
That must have been the longest wait for her as the card was processed and she signed the payment slip, clutched her carry bag and with a polite ‘thank you’ was out. She waved to an auto-rickshaw and quickly was on her way to her hotel room and subsequently on the way to the airport. She was tempted to wear her new clothes but that could wait. She needed to get out of Koch as soon as she could.
6.45pm, Foyer of the same mall,same day
Sajil Kumar takes out his wallet to make a payment and finds his credit card missing.
“It cannot be lost because I have not taken the wallet out since morning,” he tells his boss, Raju Kannampuzha half an hour later.
“Contact the credit card section of your bank at once and deactivate the card,” Raju orders him. Seeing Sajil’s helplessness, Raju takes the matter into his hands. Both men from an event management companyhad been at the mall for two days on a promotional activity for a company. As it was an all India event they were joined by a person handling the event from Chennai. It had been hectic, the event, the music and the crowds. Sajil had not bothered even with food and then this…his credit card goes missing. “Once you lose your credit card there’s nothing much one can do,” he moped after reaching the bank and deactivating his card. Looking at the transactions made he found to his surprise that the card had been used three times since morning. It was for a small of amount of Rs.100, then for Rs. 250 and then a major transaction of Rs. 5,000 was carried out.
He returned with this information to Raju, who at once found out where the big shopping had been done. The two reached the store and asked for the details of the transaction for Rs. 5,000, telling them the need for such investigation. The store keepers were attentive and cooperative. They immediately rewound the CCTV in the showroom and went through the customers who were there at 4.45pm when the transaction was done. The footage revealed to the horror of Raju and Sajil that there was only one customer in the store at that time and it was their colleague from Chennai!
The two quickly took printouts of the footage, copies of the transactions and asked the shop staff to be more alert when carrying a credit card transaction. “How can a Sajil Kumar be a lady,” asked Raju. “Why did you not check the signature that’s behind the card?” questioned an agitated Sajil. But they had played Sherlock Holmes and found the thief.
“We called her up in Chennai, next day and told her everything, about our investigation. She was stunned and offered to return the money. No, we did not inform her office or her boss,” said the two gentlemen.
Adds Raju, “There are lessons for all of us to learn from this. We now know what we can do when our credit cards are stolen or lost and store keepers need to be very careful when they make such transactions. And I hope nobody will try thieving with cards any more”
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