How police investigate a stolen credit card?

Question

How police investigate a stolen credit card?

Answer 1

Police take a report.  The police need to know the details of the credit card, location and the reported fraudulent transactions and the dollar amounts of those transactions.

Next, you as the victim, will need to file a police report with each jurisdiction where the transactions occurred (since this is where the crime occurred and would be the venue).  This can become quite time consuming and frustrating for the victim.

With any luck (slim to none) the police will be able to identify the suspect and make an arrest.

*****

The biggest obstacle to the police regarding these investigations are the financial institutes.  Most banks / corporations don't want to get involved in an investigation.  This can range from a bank not wanted to compromise a privacy issue of their client or not wanting to waste the resources to investigate a minor loss (a few thousand dollars to one of the major banks is a minor loss).  There's also the issue of venue (where the crime occurred).

Example:

Victim reports that someone had used his credit card information on line and made multiple transactions.

One of the biggest questions is whether the victim was actually involved and is now trying to cover up.

The other question is where did the transactions occurred.  The venue of the crime (jurisdiction) is based on where the crime occurred, not where the victim resides.  So this may require multiple police agencies to investigate the individual transactions occurring within their jurisdiction.  Forget it if it occurred overseas.  

If an investigation is done where the transaction occurs, will there be any video? and will that video identify the suspect.  Most retail video surveillance is horrible and has almost no identifying capabilities.  Banks usually have good video.

Next comes the banks.  Most don't want to get involved.  They will almost never release any information to the police and are reluctant to release anything to the victim, even if they have an account with that bank (bizarre, I know).  The banks will usually demand a search warrant or subpoena from the police, but those can be difficult to get especially when the police need the banking information to develop probable cause (which is needed for the warrant).

These investigations are quite frustrating, and time consuming with little chance of any resolution.  Many of my investigations have been ended because of a bank's lack of cooperation and not having enough to force the issue.

Answer 2

Faster and better to go through the card issuer. They have instant access if the card is used.

Answer 3

Usually in the investigation of a stolen credit card, the police will contact the card company to find if any charges were made against it, when, and where. They will then contact the stores where card was used and try to get an identification of the user.  

Answer 4

The police are no help at all. Usually the credit card company will run an investigation. I got robbed one time, did all the footwork myself and handed the robber over to the police on a silver platter and they still managed to let him get away

Answer 5

I can't give you an exact answer on what their procedures are, but what I can tell you is whatever they do it works. One theory is to watch for any transactions made with the stolen credit card and basically follow the theif as he makes his purchases.

Answer 6

They track the tramsactions on it after it was stolen.  Then, they contact those areas of business where that person made the purchases.  They get video and try to ID the person.  Also, they flag the account, and this is the most effective.  Once reported stolen, a flag is posted on that accout.  So say someone steals yor card and goes to Art Van and tries to use it.  The cashier will be notified that the card is stolen when it is swiped.  The cashier calls the police and stalls that person.  The police show up and arrest that person.

Answer 7

They don't as far as I've seen. I found a video tape of a person using my credit card and making a cigarette purchase with their own ID which is recorded in our state. They didn't pick up the tape until we BEGGED them to six months later and to this date they've done nothing. (Almost a year later).