Imagine how fun it must be to have your credit card stolen and then be accused of being a thief yourself. Oh, you’re right, that doesn’t sound very fun at all. A woman in Salt Lake City tells the story of a woman who had to go to great lengths, first to prove fraud, and then to defend herself against it.

Audrey says she has one credit card that she only uses for emergencies, and uses it so rarely that at first she didn’t notice it was gone from her purse, reports KUTV. But when she opened her monthly statement, she saw a string of charges she didn’t make, totaling $1,524.74.

When she called Discover, they told her she’d have to report the theft to the police to have the charges waived — in fact, she’d have to report it in every city where the card was used. So she walked into eight police stations and presented her statement to cops there, with mixed results.

“Some of those police departments were great and some were actually quite difficult to work with,” she said.

Police questioned her to make sure she wasn’t filing a false report, and most cops believed she was telling the truth. But at one station, an officer decided she was the one exhibiting fraudulent behavior. He reportedly accused her of fraud, threatened to arrest her, and read her her Miranda rights.

Audrey says he focused on the few charges she actually had made on a duplicate card, and not the string of bogus ones. The officer contacted all the other police agencies to report her, writing, “There is a strong possibility that the cases she filed with their jurisdiction would also be false.” The station notified Discover as well, telling it not to pay her.

So she took matters into her own hands to clear herself — presenting stamped time-cards and emails to show she was at work when some of the charges were made. She even pulled dental records to show she was at the dentist during some of the charges.

“To me it’s black and white, you can see that I didn’t make the charges,” she said.

She went back to the police stations for round two, and one of those agencies cleared her name as well as filing charges against a man for stealing her card.

Unfortunately, Discover wouldn’t change its mind at first, writing, “it has been determined that no fraud has occurred on your account.”

When KUTV contacted Discover and told them that charges were filed against someone for stealing Audrey’s card, it finally waived the fraudulent charges.

We’re exhausted, now.

*Thanks for the tip, Brady!

Credit Card Company Disputes Stolen Card, Charges [KUTV]

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