This story from Georgia nicely illustrates a point I made in an earlier post about how thieves obtain personal and financial information from consumers in order to commit crimes.

In this particular case, two servers who worked at an Applebee’s restaurant were gathering credit card numbers and providing them to another person who was using the credit card information to purchase pre-paid cell phones which they were probably selling on the black market.

It is presumed that the Applebee’s employees in question were writing down credit card numbers while they were in possession of the cards since the full credit card numbers are not accessible after the cards are processed for customer payments.

One of the accused employees was even said to have taken a customer’s credit card into the rest room in order to avoid being seen writing down the number.

This demonstrates that consumers need to be alert for suspicious activity when using their credit ad debit cards no matter where they may be using them or what they may be using them for.

So many people seem paranoid about using the cards to make purchases online and don’t expect their information to be stolen under more “traditional” circumstances like using a credit card to pay for a restaurant meal or a purchase in a retail establishment.

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