Please help me make sense of an unusual debit card theft

January 14, 2016 3:03 PM

My debit card was stolen. Normally this would be a no-big-deal, happens-all-the-time kind of situation, but this particular card had never left the house and seems to have been stolen from the kitchen table. Please help me decide what to do.

The details:
- The card was printed at the bank using a card printing machine and carried home by hand where and I am 90% sure it was just sitting on the kitchen table for about a month.
- I never used the card, and it never left the house.
- The card is now missing, although I guess it could still be somewhere in the house. (I am disorganized).
- Fraudulent transactions started last week. There were 7 totalling ~$300 before the bank automatically cancelled the card.
- The transactions started on the day of our bi-weekly house cleaning, in the evening after work hours. We have been using this cleaning service for years with no problems even though I routinely leave cash and cards lying around the house. The specific cleaners who come do change periodically though.
- I called the bank and went through the usual reporting process.
- I also called the cleaning service and they were very defensive, saying that they do background checks and that "their girls wouldn't even be capable of that." (talking about how they would need to figure out our PIN).
- They told me I should file a police report and that "the police will easily be able to figure out who did it."
- The only other person with access to the house is a nanny who has also been with us for years. I really do not think it was her, it would be VERY out of character, however she would know the PIN since we also use it for other stuff around the house.

Some questions:
- Transactions were listed as "Point of sale withdrawal." Does anyone know whether this type of transaction requires a PIN or a signature? The cleaning service person I was talking to was telling me that it must have been a PIN, but I don't think that's right. I am pretty sure I have used a signature with debit cards in the past, and this one had a VISA logo on it.
- Is this actually something I should file a police report about? I have never filed a police report before, and have no idea how much work it is or how much evidence you need to make it worthwhile.
- Will the bank care about any of my amateur crime sleuthing information regarding the cleaners?
- Should I be bothered by our cleaning service's response? I can kind of understand why they would be defensive about theft since people probably report things stolen all the time that were actually misplaced, but come on--this is pretty a pretty big coincidence that they should take seriously. I asked them to switch me to a different team and make a note of the problem in case anyone else reports something, and they did agree to do this, but other than complying with these things they really didn't seem to take the report very seriously.

I know the best answer here is probably just to move on, and be more careful in the future. I am having a hard time letting it drop though, since it seems most likely that the card was stolen from inside the house and it has caused me to doubt people I formerly trusted. I would appreciate any advice you have!

posted by insoluble uncertainty to Work & Money (18 answers total)

Seems pretty obvious it was either the cleaners or the nanny. I'm like you, I trust the cleaners since I haven't had anything go missing yet, but it happened once that the cleaning was really janky and when I asked, I found out one of them had brought her nephew with her to help that day... they're very casual about staffing, you know what I mean? Plus a background check just looks for prior criminal records and everyone has a first time.

Friends of mine have had nannies go bad kind of suddenly, too (I specifically mean stealing.) People's circumstances change, etc...

I think that "point of sale withdrawal" means using it as a credit card, which doesn't require knowing your PIN.

I would file a report, yes. I'd hate to know that some other client of my cleaning service had an ATM card stolen and just let it slide.
posted by fingersandtoes at 3:12 PM on January 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

It would cost the bank $300 or more to have their investigators read this post. They will write it off.
If the stores are local you could file a police report and ask them to get the store security footage before it cycles. A remote police department won't care.
posted by TheAdamist at 3:30 PM on January 14, 2016

It has to be either the cleaners, or the nanny, UNLESS someone (including cleaners or nanny) accidentally threw it out, and it was found by someone who got lucky. This happened to me once. (The person who accidentally threw it out was me.)

You'll probably never know for sure. I personally would switch cleaners, just for my own peace of mind. Which is unfortunate, if they're not to blame, but I would be too stressed out worrying about it every time I had them come henceforth, especially if you're using a service that sends different people very time you have them. Irrational, perhaps, but it would make me feel better, and also feels like something you can do in response to the fact that you're not happy with the way they handled this complaint from a customer service perspective.
posted by Countess Sandwich at 3:36 PM on January 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

Were the transactions local? That raises the chances that someone was using your physical card, rather than an electronic compromise and someone making a duplicate copy (usually more likely, but your situation is unusual).
posted by thetortoise at 3:41 PM on January 14, 2016

Response by poster: Yes, the transactions were local.
posted by insoluble uncertainty at 3:42 PM on January 14, 2016

do PINs still get sent out in sealed envelopes? or is that only for the first card, and this was a renewal?

isn't "point of sale withdrawl" where you buy something and ask for additional cash?

what were the shops / things bought?
posted by andrewcooke at 3:51 PM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If the bank will reimburse you I'd say just let it drop and move on. But with one change. It isn't fair to the cleaners nor to your nanny to be so lackadaisical about your valuables, your money, your PINs or passwords. You may feel it shows how much you trust them. But what it actually does is create a tense atmosphere of temptation which they too would no doubt prefer not to be exposed to. Just as banks should take a good part of the responsibility for not lending to borrowers they know can't repay, so should employers assure that attractive items aren't sitting there softly singing their siren songs all day long. Lock up your debit and credit cards, money, car keys, jewelry, etc. Use different PINs and passwords for each protected site or card.

By making it easy on yourself you are making it hard on them. It should be the other way around.
posted by mono blanco at 4:00 PM on January 14, 2016 [21 favorites]

In my opinion, forget it, not worth the trouble of tracking the purchases/transactions. And which you will probably not be liable for.
The solution is...don't tempt hard working people who enter your home.
Simply put away cash & cards out of sight.

If it happens again, then you definitely get involved.
posted by artdrectr at 4:00 PM on January 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am having a hard time letting it drop though, since it seems most likely that the card was stolen from inside the house and it has caused me to doubt people I formerly trusted. I would appreciate any advice you have!

You are having a hard time because not knowing exactly how it happened or who did it represents an ongoing security risk.

It will cause problems for you to be too finger pointing with either the nanny or the cleaning service, especially if neither of them is guilty. Weird coincidences do happen and two other possibilities have already been suggested: It was accidentally thrown out or someone else got into the house that day and they took it.

In order to achieve peace of mind without making this into a federal case with the nanny or cleaners, I suggest you tighten up security physically and procedurally. Stop casually leaving money and debit cards laying around while expecting the servants to not touch it. Even if they are good people, if they are your servants, they likely have a lot less money and other assets than you do. If they run into a crisis, they can be tempted by the easy access, even if they would not normally be. It is actually fairly stressful to be needy as hell, in a position to easily take something, and wanting to do right and not take it. I think I would resent being put in that position by an employer.

So, start locking up the valuables and stop leaving them lying around while you count on servants to just "be good." That at least partially solves the security problem, whether you ever learn who did it or not.
posted by Michele in California at 4:04 PM on January 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

VISA should have a record of whether these transactions used a PIN or signature. I don't think the bank will be concerned with your efforts to identify the culprit, but they should have access to that information.

I'm not sure, but I think the terminology with "point of sale withdrawal" is inconsistent and sometimes it indicates there was cashback (as andrewcooke suggests) and others just means a transaction was completed. If they did get cash back, it would indicate they probably have your PIN, which would make the cleaners/nanny more likely than someone rooting through your trash.

Either way, I'd be hiring a different cleaning service.
posted by thetortoise at 4:04 PM on January 14, 2016

Best answer: I just wanted to add something to the "write it off and don't tempt people" chorus:

It's not just that your nanny might snap one day and take your card. It's that when you leave stuff around, one person steals but everyone is under suspicion. Hard-working people do not deserve to be considered potential thieves because their employers leave stuff around to be stolen. Someone who really would never steal will still have the pall of suspicion over them forever, very unfairly, because something was left around carelessly and the person who took it is never identified.

(I say this sympathetically, as I too leave bank cards around before dealing with them.)
posted by Frowner at 4:07 PM on January 14, 2016 [26 favorites]

Adding on to what Frowner said... I used to be an account manager at a cleaning company (i.e., the person you talked to on the phone). Our cleaners were franchises, which means that if we reassigned a crew, the old crew wouldn't just get shuffled around to another job. They'd just lose that share of the business. Since we generally offered new accounts we sold to new franchisees, and most franchisees only had a handful of accounts, losing one made a huge dent in revenue, to the point where it could mean laying off employees. Even if one of the cleaners did steal it, someone else might have gotten fired as a result.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:38 PM on January 14, 2016

I know this doesn't help in the current situation, but maybe some food for future thought...

This is one of the reasons I always hire a specific cleaning person/team, not a service. Even if you keep the stuff in your house fairly secure, cleaning people have a lot of access and plenty of opportunity to steal or do other bad things. I want to know everyone who has access to my house, vet them, and ideally build long-term relationships with them. Obviously individually interviewing and getting to know your cleaning people doesn't make it impossible for them to steal from you, but I think it improves the odds vs. whatever random crew the service decides to send over. It's one less risk factor, at least...
posted by primethyme at 6:21 PM on January 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the card had a Visa logo on it, as the original question states, it's a debit/credit card and you do not need a pin to use it. You can either use it as a debit card with a pin or as a credit card without anything. The pin is an irrelevant red herring here.

Personally I'd get a copy of all the purchases and see if you can figure it out, although if the thief was smart, they just bought a bunch of gift cards. You could file a police report and try to get surveillance footage of when and where the card was used, but they don't keep that footage for very long, so you should get started now. My friend's car was damaged in a parking lot and police did request the video on her behalf (which didn't show anything, the police said).
posted by AppleTurnover at 6:40 PM on January 14, 2016

It could be (and similar things have happened to friends) that a door/window was left open and some enterprising person popped in, saw the card and swiped it, although you think they'd rack up more charges in that situation.
posted by Mezentian at 8:53 PM on January 14, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks so much for the feedback.

I decided not to file a police report since it sounds like it would be a lot of work and would probably cause stress for our nanny and any cleaners who were not involved.

I would LOVE to see the surveillance video and solve this mystery, but I have realized that whoever took the card is probably someone in tough situation giving in to temptation, not some kind of credit card stealing mastermind who has victimized many people. I think the healthy thing to do is to drop it and be more careful with my cards in the future.
posted by insoluble uncertainty at 11:54 AM on January 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

To be fair, the nanny and the cleaners won't necessarily know. You can tell the police you just want to see if whoever used the card shows up on security footage and you don't want them to question anyone. I mean, if I saw someone's credit card lying on a table, I wouldn't take it. Regardless of the "temptation" presented, it's a really shitty thing to do and a total betrayal of trust. I wouldn't let someone who feels "tempted" to steal into my home, personally. Needing or wanting money isn't a valid excuse for me.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:36 PM on January 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

I had to do a police report when my debit card got stolen because my bank (in Australia) needed it to process my refund and new bank card (I think the refund came immediately but there was some reason the report was handy). I had no idea who took my card, and the police won't expect you to know, so the report isn't going to get your cleaners or nanny in trouble.
posted by divabat at 11:16 PM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]