This happened last week, and I got an identity thief located hundreds of miles away from me arrested.

At 6:45pm, I received a text message alert notifying me of a transaction on one of my credit cards for the amount of $51.87 from one of the largest PIZZA chains here in the US. Since I did not make this purchase I knew right away that someone must have gotten my CC somehow, and used it to purchase some dinner. I had to act fast, I phoned my card company and got through to a representative who located the charge. I informed him that this was a fraudulent transaction and if they could provide me with the Pizza Chain’s store number or any information that merchants include like a zip code or store number. He read off a series of numbers which I assumed was a store # so I Google’d that along with Pizza Restaurant. I was told the transaction would be covered under the company’s fraud reversal program. The store number brings up a location 500 miles away but in the same time zone. Since this thief ordered a Pizza, I wanted to let the business know if they can confirm the fraudulent charge, and see what they would do if they were being notified by the me that I was the victim of identity theft that they were being scammed and likely have a charge back for this order.
7:11pm I was connected with the store manager, who was very interested in this order. They confirmed the total went through and that the purchase was a delivery order. This Manager of the Pizza Chain would not disclose any personally identifying information to me, but I did over hear her talking with the driver who delivered the pizza. She wanted to catch this customer, because using stolen CCs is just as worse as stealing. Chargebacks are the worst. She wanted to notify the police after we spoke. I wanted to know what kind of tip was left and I was told te thief left a $5 tip, and the delivery was to a local motel. WOW. The manager informed me that she was going to file a police report, and I did the same. I was not able to connect to the city’s PD where the purchase took place, so I made a report with my local PD. By 7:31pm I was able to provide my report over the phone, to my local PD. At first, I was hoping that they would pay a visit to the thief or to the Pizza Chain. Upon leaving my report of what happened. The local cop said that they will forward my information to the PD where the Pizza order took place. At this point, It did not sound like anything would be done, so I assumed this would fizzle out and I don’t find out who had ordered a pizza delivery 500 Miles away with one of my credit cards. 10:28pm I am called by a police from the city where the pizza was ordered, asking to review what happened and because I was a victim if I would be willing to press charges. He then asked if he should do a visit at the thief’s motel room. At this point I assume the manager of the Pizza Chainreleased the location of the thief who stole my CC numbers to order pizza. I told the cop to go for it, see if they are home and put a scare in them at least. The next day, I have a voice mail from the police saying that they were able to make contact with the thief and that he had over 26 credit card details that were stolen. He was arrested that night.

Edited out the business’s name.
TLDR; Identify thieves are winning and stolen CC information from security breaches in the company’s and systems we thought we used to be able to to trust, but now this is no longer the case. Program all your payment methods to send a text or email to notify you every time a transaction takes place. Had I not received that text, I would have never seen that fraudulent charge, and was able to respond as quickly as I did.