Free auto insurance quote was the pitch used by a clever thief to get you to hand over your credit card.
Is was one of the weirdest credit theft ideas I have heard of. The man was going from door to door offering to give you a free auto insurance quote on the spot. To get the super cheap price on the auto insurance you had to give him your credit card on the spot and let him “approve ” the card with his hand held credit card reader. He would then say the card was declined and leave the home with the the card owner thinking there was no charge.
The thief was using a hand credit card copier attached to a PDA. As soon as he had the info from the credit card he sent the information to his friends and erased all proof from the reader. They believed that if caught there would be no proof. It was working great until he hit the door of a local police officer who quietly called it in and had him followed.
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The Chicago suburb police followed the man back to his place of residence. They found three more of the free auto insurance quote card readers and two laptop thought to be used to store some of the info. The police aren’t sure yet how many credit cards were swiped and where the info was sent to.
If someone comes to your door offering a free auto insurance quote on the spot, please, just shut the door.