SHORT PUMP, Va. -- A victim of credit card fraud says her purse was draped over the chair at a restaurant but acknowledged it had been unzipped.
She was talking with a colleague not knowing thieves were rifling through her purse.
Then she got a fraud alert text on her phone.
That Tuesday lunch at the Short Pump Town Panera left a bad taste in the mouth for the Chesterfield woman and it had nothing to do with the food.
The victim told CBS-6 off-camera she was eating when she got the message about her credit cards. When she reached back for her wallet it was gone. She quickly called the credit card companies only to find out the crooks were already minutes into “Operation rip-off.”
"It's shocking it happened so quickly," said Ashley Loving, who was shopping at Short Pump.
The victim rushed over to the Apple store to discover her credit cards had just been used to make two $4,000 gift card purchases. Her credit cards also triggered fraud alerts at Anne Taylor, Fossil, CVS and Nordstrom.
Other shoppers say they can’t believe how brazen thieves are getting .
"You just got to be careful while you’re out and look after it,” said shopper Kelly Thimsen. “Who would steal credit cards, though, and think they'd get away with it?"
So far the crooks have gotten away with it, but detectives say they're not far behind.
The victim says between 1:15 p.m. and 1:51 p.m. – just 36 minutes- crooks charged up more than $12,500 worth of gift cards and goods.
She says if it wasn't for her fraud alert, she would've most likely suffered more financial damage.
Keep looking for updates to this story: police hope to release surveillance footage soon. Sources say a man, a woman and possibly two other suspects are involved.
