C.O. Credit Card Scam Numbers Soaring

The number of Central Oregonians reporting their credit cars being compromised by scammers in recent days has topped 85, Bend police said Tuesday afternoon. That’s nearly triple the 31 cases reported by Monday.

We’re also told Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies are getting plenty of reports as well.

“My bank realized my same card can’t be possibly used at both coasts at the same time,” Leah Wernli, one of the many Bend ID theft victims, said Tuesday.

Wernli said she was just coming home from a weekend out of town, when she got a call from her bank verifying the purchases she had made with her credit card. Three purchases she had made — but two she had not.

“I used it to purchase gas in Mill City. it was at the same time as the thief started to use it in Maryland,” Wernli said.

Fortunately, the bank realized she couldn’t be in two places at once, so it didn’t charge her whent the suspect tried to rip her off for almost $200.

“The fact that it was on the East Coast made a big difference,” Wernli said. “There’s no way I could have in 15 minutes bought something in Oregon and Maryland.”

Whoever is behind the rash of cases..Wernli doesn’t think they will be caught.

“It’s just too bad,” she said. “It’s just the way technology advances — and so do the thieves. Tthey come up with new ways to rip people off.”

The credit card numbers have been used at stores around the country and even around the world, in Italy and Mexico.

That makes local authorities say it’s not just one person or business behind the fraud,

“It seems to be a real random, across-the-board thing,” said Bend police Sgt. Tom Pine. “That kind of leads us to not just one local person or business, but an organized kind of thing.”

“Again, at this point, so limited data,” Pine said. “We’re really stuck in the phase of being overwhelmed, for lack of a better word, at the amount of volume of victims coming in.”

Police said it doesn’t appear any one particular business is a common link to the thefts, as they earlier believed.

The reported incidents appear to have occurred between June 30 and July 8.

You’re encouraged to contact Bend police or your local police agency to help in their investigation, as well as your financial institution.

Police said Monday there’s definitely a link between the cases, but they just don’t know what it is yet.

The news of the rash of cases came as a surprise to one Bend man after he learned that he too, was a victim.

“My wife gave me a call, and she said that the bank had called her, and someone down in Mexico is trying to buy $600 worth of groceries,” Brian Hinderberger said.

After receiving the call from his wife, Hinderberger immediately cancelled his credit card.

“I think both of us were relieved that our bank system was on it,” he said.

While Hinderberger was lucky to not lose any money, other people might not be.

“This is obviously a huge number, something we haven’t seen in a year or two years, as far as this great a number and short period of time,” said Bend police Sgt. Chris Carney.

Police do know the stolen card numbers were used all over the country. Many of the numbers have been used at Wal-Marts from Colorado and Texas to Alabama and Tennessee.

The question now: Is it happening from a central location, where a computer system was hacked, or was a card-reading “skimmer” used by a store or restaurant employee?

“All these things we have to find, so that’s to the advantage, sometimes, to these suspects. They know they have some time before they get caught,” Carney said.

Hinderberger still can’t believe that someone could so easily steal his credit card information to try and buy $600 worth of groceries.

“I think a criminal, to buy $600 right up front, they must have been desperate,” he said.

Hinderberger should be receiving a new card in the mail, and recommends others do the same.

“If you do have your credit cards stolen, it’s good to go wherever you have that number, clear it out and start with a clean slate, because you never know,” Hinderberger said.

Banks typically reverse the charges, and the banks are reimbursed by the FDIC.

Police say always try to remember with your credit cards to keep them secure, to not to give out your number, and to be careful using them over the Internet.