Dinah's favorite occupation (besides chewing on Seamus) is stealing underwear from the dirty laundry basket. She'll steal other things just for chuckles: Greg's pencils, stuff out of the trash, junk mail... anything that she thinks will get a rise out of somebody. Mostly, though, she steals hearts.
And then there's Charlie. He's so well-behaved most of the time that it's easy just to take him for granted. He sits, he stays, he comes when called, he's good in the car and on the trail. He's not a mellow dog, but he is a fairly easy keeper. Just look into those lovely hazel eyes of his and tell me if you think he has the capacity to be a thief.
Yeah, right. That innocent-looking brown-faced boy swiped most of a pork roast off the kitchen counter when Greg had his back turned. The guy works fast, too -- he'd almost made the whole thing disappear before Greg noticed it was gone. Let's just say that there was no joy in Mudville at lunchtime...
You have to hand it to the credit card companies for at least trying to lessen the incidence of identity theft, but sometimes the companies' ideas of what constitutes theft do give one pause. I've used the same Visa card for much of my dog expenses this past year, including Seamus's AKC and CKC registrations and Dinah's KC registration and export pedigree. Anyway, I penned in the same number on Dinah's AKC registration form and shipped it off to North Carolina last week.
Since I'm getting a decent tax refund this year, I thought I would replace my failing old digital camera with a better model that Jana recommended to me. I carefully researched all of the prices out there and decided on the best deal, then placed my order with my Visa card.
The card came back with a "Call for Authorization" message attached. I was deeply confused, since I was way below the limit. Anyway, I called the bank.
Turns out that they had spotted some suspicious (to them) activity on my card and wanted me to verify that I was the one making those purchases. One of the purchases they'd flagged I could understand -- thieves do sometimes buy electronic equipment (such as digital cameras) with stolen credit cards and then resell the items for cash. The other charge they'd flagged, however, was to the AKC for Dinah's registration. I verified that I had indeed made both purchases, and they allowed both payments. Everything did work out in the end.
It sure makes me wonder, though. How many identity thieves rush off to register dogs with the AKC using stolen credit cards?
1 comment:
I had a dachshund once who liked to steal dirty laundry, but usually it's our cats who do that sort of thing. I think I blogged once how the dog helped us catch Emily with her paws in the trash. Another cat once dragged a loaf of bread off the counter (he liked toast, so maybe he was trying to make some by himself). Emily likes pens, and I've learned to keep them out of her reach, after I once found a few pushed under the couch when I cleaned. We even once had a cat who liked bottle caps (the metal ones from beer and mineral water). We used to give her one to play with now and then, until she started dropping them into our shoes. You only have to step down on the turned up side of a metal bottlecap once before you decide that's a bad idea.
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