Bloomingdales Thanks You for Your Recent Purchases!

 

Sundays in the Fall are fairly routine for yours truly.

After two XL size cups of black coffee, I meet Paul, my tennis partner of 30 years at 9 a.m. for a competitive best of three set singles match and afterwards settle down for the remainder of the afternoon to watch football.

Paul and I often text each other on reactions and observations to whatever game is featured in the New York market so you can imagine my surprise when I received a message on Sunday not from him, but an alert from the fraud department at American Express wanting to confirm that I had just spent $4,000 at trendy Bloomingdales.

Talk about a wake-up text!

Apparently, someone obtained my credit card number and proceeded to help themselves to the Bloomingdales inventory like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I immediately called AmEx to confirm that the exorbitant purchases were not mine – lest I chance being kicked out of the house by my enraged spouse.

The customer service rep apologized and promised a new card within two days. Hopefully the matter is settled. Hopefully.

But I got to thinking.

With the holidays encroaching and the pandemic restrictions gradually lifting how big a criminal enterprise was retail fraud – particularly credit card and online fraud?

Plenty big.

At the end of 2020, credit card fraud in the U.S. was projected to hit roughly $11 billion. Yes, with a “B.” Worldwide, credit card fraud was approaching $30 billion annually.

Want more good news?

Nearly half of all Americans suffered some form of financial identity theft in 2020. That theft will result in a loss of $712 billion. Yes, you read that correctly.

Now compare that with old fashioned bank robberies, stories of which appear with far greater frequency in newspapers than those of credit card theft. The “take” as the police refer to it for robberies in FDIC insured banks totaled $482 million over 2020.

I was even surprised people still robbed banks. With cyber breaches of all kinds spiking 238 percent from 2019 to 2020 my question is why would anyone risk brandishing a gun and risk capture? And, for those keeping score at home, the oldest bank robber apprehended last year was 92 years old.

Again, you read that correctly.

And to add insult to injury, that Monday morning I received a congratulatory email from Bloomingdales thanking me for opening an online account and as a reward they tacked on a 15 percent discount on my next purchase.

Nurse!