This is a story that combine the best of both worlds - a stupid criminal and an equally stupid victim. I mean it! Both of these characters are sharp as marbles.
Crook calls to check if stolen cards still active - gets arrested
A 37-year-old Allentown man who had stolen his neighbor's credit cards and used them to make thousands of dollars in purchases called up the card companies several times to make sure the cards were still active, according to court records. According to court records, those phone calls helped land the crook behind bars.
Police say Angel L. Roman broke into his neighbor's home in December, taking her checkbook and credit cards and then using the cards to buy $7,400 in jewelry, televisions, cameras, video game systems and other items.
Jessica Hernandez told police since the break-in at her apartment, someone used six of her credit cards to make 26 unauthorized transactions from December until March 19.
Police learned from the credit card companies that they have received a number of calls from an unknown person about the status of the stolen credit cards. The credit card company recorded the cellphone numbers from the caller and provided it to police.
Allentown police checked their database and found the numbers belonged to Roman. On Wednesday police served a warrant at Roman's house and located several electronics that were purchased with the stolen credit cards.
Police interviewed Roman and he admitted to breaking into his neighbor's home, stealing the cards and making the purchases. He was charged with burglary, criminal trespassing, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, forgery and access device fraud.
Whew! That was a longish story. At least for me anyway. Why do you think all I usually write are 55 word or 160 character memes? It's about all I have the patience to read.
So, Angel who is clearly not living up to his name breaks into his neighbor's house in December and is so shocked that the cards haven't been canceled in March, that he makes courtesy calls to the credit card company to confirm the "previous owner's" stupidity. Did this woman never look in her purse? Six credit cards gone and she doesn't miss them? Never makes a call to her credit card company about missing cards? Excuse me for being so early with this line but "What the Hell?" rest assured I will still close with it. Then there is the credit card company who casually takes a number of calls from some guy whose identity they don't verify on a woman's credit card balance....and we are trusting these people with our credit information??? GAH!
These two actually deserve each other in some karmic way. They seem to be on the same mental wave length, if you know what I mean. And that wave is pretty darn small.
Beyond these two ding dongs, what surprises me is that the police actually went through all this effort to catch the thief. When my house was broken into many years back, all they did was look around, shrug their shoulders and say "Yup, you been robbed," and that was the last I heard from them or saw of my things. Maybe if I had left a credit card out for the thieves to call about on the credit limit I would have been better off.
So apparently our victim, Jessica, didn't open her credit card bills between December and March, thus was unable to see the strange and unauthorized charges or utter that famous line - "What the Hell?"
