People have been asking about the latest chapter in my debit card scam, so here’s an update and hopefully, the final chapter.

As it turned out, the thief/thieves duplicated my debit card. That’s right. They manufactured additional debit cards to look like the real thing. My guess is they were sold to other thieves around the country who then took them to stores and purchased items. The cards were presented in department stores in Missouri, California, and Minnesota. The purchases were small — less than $50.

I remember how disgusted I would be back in the day when department stores wanted to see my driver’s license whenever I wrote a check. Now I wonder if stores would do consumers a favor by asking for IDs with credit/debit cards.

How often does a clerk look at the back of a card to check a signature? How many times does a clerk actually handle a debit or credit card when customers only have to swipe a card through a scanner?

These thieves are pretty sophisticated, or at least dedicated, by figuring out how to do duplicate debit/credit cards. What a tremendous waste of talent.

Don’t they know they could make an honest living by using that talent for something legal and probably make more money to boot? Sad.

— susan berg