Mystery Topic Challenge #8: Debit Card Fraud

It's time for another Mystery Topic Challenge. Here's the theme for this one:

Last Thursday I received a call from the fraud department at Visa. It seems someone created a duplicate of my debit/ATM/credit card and used it at truck stops in Alberta, Canada and again several days later at an amusement park in Baltimore, Maryland. I suspect I’ll never know how they got my number, what they bought with my money or why they needed those things.

Write a story using the above elements and shed some light on the mystery for me.

Well, with a little investigation and a whole lot of luck, I managed to catch up with your thief. Daniel Perkins, or "Perky" as his friends call him, agreed to an interview and I hopped on a plane to go meet him.

BunGirl: Thanks for meeting with me, Mr. Perkins. I appreciate your time.

Perky: Please, call me Perky. It's no problem at all really. I want this chance to clear my name.

BG: You mean to tell me you didn't steal a debit card and make purchases in Alberta and Baltimore?

Perky: Oh, no, I did that. I couldn't help myself though. Addiction is a tough thing to overcome you know. It compels you to do things you would never do under normal circumstances.

BG: Ok... Well then, why don't you just tell us how this all started.

Perky: Sure, sure. A few years ago, a friend of mine took a vacation in Jamaica. He was a pretty good friend, so of course he decided to bring me back a souvenir from his trip. He had no idea

BG: Hate to interrupt, but I meant how the debit card incident started.

Perky: I was gettin' to that! Geez, you want to hear this story or not?

BG: Sorry.

Perky: As well you should be. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, Bill decided to bring back a treat for me from Jamaica. He had no idea what it would turn into, he really meant well. Still, I wish he had never done it. He brought back some of the finest Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee beans this world has ever seen.

BG: I'm sorry, did you say coffee beans?

Perky: Sure did. These weren't your regular Maxwell House beans either. Jamaican Blue Mountains can go for upward of $50 a pound. And here I was, uneducated to the delights of coffee, an innocent in a connoisseur's world. I still thought the coffee at the local Quick Stop was the best stuff around. Those beans really opened up my eyes to the world around me, you know what you mean?

BG: Not really... Please continue though.

Perky: Alright. Well, the five pound bag I was given didn't last very long, and before I knew it, I was scouring the shelves at the local supermarkets, looking for new varieties. The folks at Starbucks knew me by name and always were sure to point out to me any new stock they had in. I had heard that caffeine could be addictive, but this was something different. This wasn't about the caffeine buzz -- I could have gotten that from any old bean. This was about the experience. The flavor, aroma, the pure joy of that first taste, these are the things I crave. Not some cheap, jittery high.

BG: So it was your addiction to coffee beans that inspired you to steal someone else's debit card?

Perky: Well, yeah. I got in way over my head pretty quick. Before I knew it, I was flying to Jamaica, Panama, Costa Rica, just to try to get a fresher brew. I plowed right through my meager savings, but I just couldn't stop. It was like a compulsion. Pretty soon I had turned to shoplifting to meet all of my other needs. I didn't spend a single dime on anything other than coffee. Somewhere in all of my travels, I ran across this guy who taught me how to rig an ATM to capture someone's debit card information. I figured I had hit the payload -- with that kind of information, I could afford to go anywhere the beans called!

BG: So you chose Alberta?

Perky: Well, that wasn't my first choice, just the first one on your friend's card. There had been seven or eight other cards prior to that. Anyway, Calgary's got some pretty good coffee shops. A guy in Guatemala told me that the Black Diamond had some special beans in stock and I should rush right up there and get me some. Of course, I was so taken by the addiction by that point that I wasn't even researching my leads anymore. No sooner had he suggested it than I was on the phone booking plane tickets to Alberta.

BG: So you got to Alberta and searched out this Black Diamond coffee shop?

Perky: Yeah, except it's not even a real coffee shop. It's a bakery that also has a coffee shop attached. And they didn't have anything close to the kind of thing I was looking for. All somewhat pedestrian if you know what I mean. Well, I was fuming. I had missed out on the Kona Coffee Festival because of the "tip" this joker had provided, so I decided to track him down and give him a piece of my mind. I searched for him everywhere. He was a traveller like me you see. Coulda been anywhere on the planet, but where do I find him? Baltimore Maryland.

BG: So that's why you went to Baltimore?

Perky: Of course. I had to let the guy know that this was not acceptable.

BG: Where was it that you caught up to him?

Perky: A little dive of a place, called Bingo World. Can you believe they have the nerve to call that dump an amusement park? Anyway, he was there with his granny, celebrating her 80th birthday or something. But I was ready for my revenge. I tailed the pair all day. I watched them as they played the mid-day, matinee, main and night owl games, but just before the twilight game at one am, I finally caught him alone. I didn't really mean any harm, just wanted to rough him up a bit. Let him know he couldn't get away with playing tricks on me. Course, I got a bit carried away...

BG: And that's how you landed yourself here in prison?

Perky: Yep. It seems that Bingo World security had been keeping an eye on me all day. I guess they don't have much else to do. I would've gotten away with it otherwise. Like I said, I only meant to rough him up, but I got carried away. Turns out a broken bottle can kill a man if you hit him with it just right, repeatedly. I was about to jump the fence and take off, maybe hide out in Columbia for a while, when the guards grabbed me. They threw me in the pen after that. I guess you probably already know this, but the judge has denied me bail. Says I'm a flight risk. I'm cleaned up now though. I'm ready to do my time.

BG: Cleaned up?

Perky: Yeah, have you seen the coffee they serve here? It's like industrial waste. No way I was drinking any of that stuff. I went cold turkey as soon as they locked me up. The first few weeks were kind of shaky, but I'm better now.

123 - A Meme as Simple as Do Re Mi

I found this meme on The Habitation of Justice, and decided to do it. So, here goes.

• Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
• Find Page 123.
• Find the first 5 sentences.
• Post the next 3 sentences.
• Tag 5 people.

Nearest book: a book of Kakuro puzzles... that won't work. Just under it: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

I purposefully lumped myself in with the youngsters, trying to make it clear that I preferred Jacob.
"That's Sam -- he's nineteen," he informed me.
"What was that he as saying baout the doctor's family?" I asked innocently.

So, there ya go. If you wanna know what that's all about, you'll just have to read the book. It's vampire fiction, but it's written for the pre-teen market, so nothing too scary or bloody or whatnot.



Now, as for the tagging. I'm not a big fan of telling anyone what they should or should not post on their blog. So, I'm tagging the first five people who read this post and think it sounds like fun. Just make sure you leave me a comment so I can go read what you've posted!

Write a Letter, Win a Custom Blog Header

Anti-Barbie is currently running a contest. All you have to do is write a letter to her fictional advice columnist and the one she likes best will win a custom blog header. Of course, I couldn't pass this one up, so here's my entry:

Dear Shabby,

I have an unusual problem and I hope you can help.

After work a few days ago I was driving to my home, way out in the country when I encountered a herd of cattle crossing the road. I waited patiently for what seemed like forever, then got out to see if I could somehow hurry them along. Unfortunately, I managed to spook the cows, who then stampeded over my car as if it were a speed bump. Of course, by the time they were cleared out, I found that the car wouldn’t start.

You would think I’d be asking about car repair, but I’m not.

I had left my cell phone at home on the charger, so I wandered up to the nearest house I could spot. It was quite a ways off and I had to climb over the broken fence the cows had come through to get there. So distressed was I by my situation, that I neglected to keep an eye out for cow droppings. My foot hit a big pile and I slipped and fell flat on my butt, covering my business suit in some of the finest fertilizer nature has ever made.

You would think I’d be asking about how to get manure out of dry cleaning, but I’m not.

When I managed to pick myself up and brush/wipe the biggest clumps off, I continued my journey across the field when I heard a commotion coming from the other side of the house. I broke into a run and made it around the corner just in time to see a couple of men beating up a defenseless farmer. I couldn’t just leave him to his fate, so I got the thugs’ attention and they immediately turned and came after me, saying something about “no witnesses.”

You would think I would be asking about self defense classes, but I’m not.

As I was defending the poor, helpless farmer by taking multiple kicks and punches all over my dung-covered body, I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the house. Apparently that startled my attackers enough to convince them to flee. As my vision began fading out, I looked up to see the farmer’s wife standing over me with a shotgun in her hand and a concerned look on her face. “Now don’t you worry, I’ll get you all fixed up,” was the thing I heard before drifting into unconsciousness.

You would think I would be asking about how to repay someone for saving my life, but I’m not.

When I finally came to, I found myself tied to a chair in the middle of an otherwise empty barn with a gag in my mouth. The noise that had awakened me apparently was one of the barn doors opening, as soon the farmer’s wife came into view again. “What are you doing on my property?” she demanded. When I could only give her a confused grunt, she went on, “You’re that tramp my Fred’s been seeing behind my back, aren’t you? I don’t know about wherever you’re from, but we don’t tolerate sleeping with other women’s husbands around here missy.”

You would think I’d be asking about how to prove my innocence, but I’m not.

She removed the gag and I denied the charges against me vehemently, but she insisted that I would not be leaving this barn until her husband woke up. Seems he was still knocked out from his attack. “I’ll know as soon as he sees you, and you’d better hope you’re not lying to me,” she told me. She seemed like she wanted to believe me and for the next couple of days she treated me better than I had expected, cooking for me and tending to my scrapes and bruises, all the while giving me reports on Fred’s progress. On the second evening, she reported that he was looking well enough that she’d be bringing him to the barn in the morning. That morning, she helped him limp out to the barn and opened the door so he could see me. I must’ve looked a fright, and he certainly didn’t recognize me at all, so she took him back to the house and came and untied me.

You would think I’d be asking about how to press charges for kidnapping, but I’m not.

“Now I hope there won’t be any hard feelings,” she stammered as she let me go. I assured her that I wanted nothing more than to put this whole incident behind me, and asked if my car had been towed out of the road yet. She said she had seen a tow truck come a few hours after my attack, and she had written down the name and number of the towing company in case the car was mine. She took me into the house and let me get myself cleaned up as well as I could. Then she handed me a slip of paper and pointed me to the phone while she started to make breakfast.

You would think I’d be asking about how to get my car back, but I’m not.

A few hours and a plate of the best pancakes I had ever eaten later, I had finally gotten things straightened out with the towing company and the local police. In exchange for her paying for my car repairs (apparently it wasn’t totaled in the stampede) I was just telling everyone that I had been unconscious this whole time and she had nursed me back to health. I was ok with that. As I said, I just wanted to put it all behind me. While I was waiting for a friend to come drive me home, we got to chatting and I found out that she was actually my boss’ sister. The thugs who had beaten me so badly were collecting on an “unpaid insurance policy” that her brother had given her the money to cover. Unfortunately, she had been angry at her husband for his affair (she still doesn’t know who the girl is) so she had spent the money on herself with a day at the spa, figuring they’d just rough him up a bit and leave. She begged me not to tell her brother that she had misspent his money, and I agreed as I was feeling quite glad that this whole incident was almost over.

You would think I’d be asking about how to convince someone to seek help from the police when they really need it, but I’m not.

My question is, how do I explain to my boss the three days I missed of work and why I didn’t call, without letting my kidnapper’s secret out?

Bruised and Baffled in Yoder, KS