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Credit card theft - Scam artists land on real numbers at random, then glue together their own cards.
MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian Staff
Before heading out for a weekend trip to Seattle with his wife, Aaron Reed checked his bank account online.
Puzzled by a credit card authorization from the Lloyd Center shop Things Remembered, Reed walked to the bedroom to ask his wife whether she had bought any jewelry or gifts lately. By the time he returned to his computer, more unusual transactions had popped up: a $15 Broadway cab fare and $270 for five nights in an Econo Lodge Motel.
"It weirded me out because I had my card," said Reed, 35. "It wasn't like I had lost my card."
The thief didn't need Reed's bank or debit cards, financial records, mail or credit card receipts. She hit on his account number by chance.
Like mathematicians searching for the right formula, such thieves painstakingly try out combinations of 16 digits until they come up with a series that fits someone's card number.
They grab gift cards found in most grocery stores and craft their own credit card or debit card -- shaving numbers off the gift cards with razor blades and gluing the right sequence onto a stolen bank card or a bank-issued gift card.
Police say the scam, called credit card shaving, is taking off in the Portland area. Victims usually are unaware that their accounts have been compromised.
"People don't understand it. They're scratching their heads. 'Nobody stole my mail. There was no burglary.' Their credit card number is being used, but their card is still in their purse or wallet," says Portland Officer Barbara Glass. "Most victims are spun-out worried, looking for some conspiracy clue. But it's just dumb luck they got hit."
The Identity Theft Assistance Center, based in Washington, D.C., wasn't aware of the scheme. But Joseph LaRocca, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention, says the scam has surfaced before throughout the country.
Thanks to Reed's close monitoring of his bank account online, police went to the Econo Lodge at Southeast 82nd Avenue and Holgate Boulevard on July 27 and found a woman had used his credit card number to rent Room 355.
The thief didn't need Reed's bank or debit cards, financial records, mail or credit card receipts. She hit on his account number by chance.
Like mathematicians searching for the right formula, such thieves painstakingly try out combinations of 16 digits until they come up with a series that fits someone's card number.
They grab gift cards found in most grocery stores and craft their own credit card or debit card -- shaving numbers off the gift cards with razor blades and gluing the right sequence onto a stolen bank card or a bank-issued gift card.
Police say the scam, called credit card shaving, is taking off in the Portland area. Victims usually are unaware that their accounts have been compromised.
"People don't understand it. They're scratching their heads. 'Nobody stole my mail. There was no burglary.' Their credit card number is being used, but their card is still in their purse or wallet," says Portland Officer Barbara Glass. "Most victims are spun-out worried, looking for some conspiracy clue. But it's just dumb luck they got hit."
The Identity Theft Assistance Center, based in Washington, D.C., wasn't aware of the scheme. But Joseph LaRocca, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention, says the scam has surfaced before throughout the country.
Thanks to Reed's close monitoring of his bank account online, police went to the Econo Lodge at Southeast 82nd Avenue and Holgate Boulevard on July 27 and found a woman had used his credit card number to rent Room 355.
Many of the self-made cards look as if they've been through a clothes dryer. "At first, I couldn't believe that merchants would take that stuff," says Glass' partner, Officer Dave Staab.
"Money Jones"
Portis, 35, who goes by the aliases "Money" or "Money Jones," told investigators she was just learning the credit card shaving scheme, court documents show. Yet, when Glass and Staab feigned ignorance and asked whether she could educate them, they say she didn't hold back.
"All of a sudden she became very animated," Glass recalls.
Portis told the officers how the scheme worked, according to a court affidavit: Typically, the thieves have to alter only the last four digits of a credit card. The first 12 digits are the same on many cards because it is the bank identification code. Using razor blades, they shave off the last four digits, then iron the card so that any raised edges are flattened. They shave off the numbers they need from another card, usually a gift card, and apply them with superglue to the card being altered.
Stolen bank or credit cards are often altered because they can be used with new numbers long after their owners have deactivated them. Bank-issued gift cards, which have no names or expiration dates, are also used.
Portis has been arrested multiple times in Portland. Investigators say she has operated with four or five other women as part of a Portland-area network. They suspect Portis acted as one of the "middle people."
doesn't go out and steal stuff, but people bring the cards to her," Glass says.
Two months after the Econo Lodge Motel arrest, Portis was picked up and accused of using a homemade credit card to buy DVDs at a Blockbuster Video in Northeast Portland. This time, an employee didn't accept the card, recognizing it had been altered. Portis told police she accidentally ran her card through the dryer, causing the numbers to partly melt, but officers didn't buy it.
On Jan. 10, Portland officers got a warrant to search Portis' home in the 13700 block of Southeast Stark Street. They found a stolen credit card belonging to Helen Pittman, whose car was broken into two months earlier in Northeast Portland. But Pittman's name had been shaved off and replaced by Ms. Aishish Portis.
Pittman, 57, a mortgage broker, told police that other items stolen included some of her client portfolios, her wallet and credit cards, and a ledger of business checks. When Pittman called to cancel her bank card, her bank mailed important forms to Portis' home, not Pittman's, because Portis had already changed the account address.
Investigators also found bags of paperwork next to Portis' bed, a box of razor blades and a copy of the state statute on computer crime.
Portis faced 132 counts of identity theft or fraudulent credit card use from at least three cases filed in Multnomah County, stemming from alleged criminal activity between October 2005 and January. Last year, Portis was arrested several times and each time released from custody days later. After her Jan. 10 arrest, she remained in custody because of the multitude of charges that had piled up.
On Friday, Portis pleaded guilty to 10 identity-theft felony charges and was sentenced to four years and four months in prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine to the state under a negotiated deal. Kevin Demer, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney, said the sentence was significant, considering she had no criminal record.
"How the heck . . . ?"
In a separate case, Javad Mashkuri noticed unfamiliar charges on his monthly debit card statement for sneakers, groceries from a 7-Eleven, and for United Cab company. "I was like . . . I didn't do that," he said. "It didn't make sense."
He asked his wife, who shares the account, whether she had made the purchases, but she hadn't. "Shoot, if I didn't lose my card, how the heck did this happen?" he asked himself.
Police traced the use of Mashkuri's account number to Charzetta James. Police say she tried to use a shaved credit card at a Safeway on Sept. 26. Employees questioned the validity of the card and called police. Glass discovered the number belonged to Mashkuri and alerted him of the fraud.
Mashkuri couldn't believe it when the officer explained how his card number was picked out of the blue.
"We generally tell them . . . it was the luck of the draw for you, buddy, sorry," Glass says.
The suspect ran up charges on Mashkuri's account before her arrest. "It took months to get it all straightened out," said Mashkuri, an emergency room doctor at OHSU.
Investigators say the best way to guard against the fraud is to closely monitor personal financial accounts, and for retailers not to accept cards when their magnetic strips aren't working.
Glass and her partner, Staab, remember watching a videotaped surveillance from a Big 5 Sporting Goods store where one of Portis' alleged accomplices used an altered credit card. They watched the clerk pause to closely examine the card, then make some phone calls. A manager came to take a look.
"We're yelling 'Stop! Don't take it! Don't take it!' " Staab recalls, like movie watchers trying to warn the hero. But the card was accepted.
"We see it over and over and over again," Staab says.
The officers suggest retailers "trust their gut" when a card doesn't look authentic and not accept cards with inoperable magnetic strips. Police and LaRocca agree that the scam is most successful at low-end stores with heavy customer traffic, where cashiers may be less diligent in examining cards.
Demer, the deputy district attorney, says the credit card shaving scam is surprisingly simple. "They make the credit cards match good numbers," he says. "This is a low bottom-feeder way, but it works."
MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian Staff
Before heading out for a weekend trip to Seattle with his wife, Aaron Reed checked his bank account online.
Puzzled by a credit card authorization from the Lloyd Center shop Things Remembered, Reed walked to the bedroom to ask his wife whether she had bought any jewelry or gifts lately. By the time he returned to his computer, more unusual transactions had popped up: a $15 Broadway cab fare and $270 for five nights in an Econo Lodge Motel.
"It weirded me out because I had my card," said Reed, 35. "It wasn't like I had lost my card."
The thief didn't need Reed's bank or debit cards, financial records, mail or credit card receipts. She hit on his account number by chance.
Like mathematicians searching for the right formula, such thieves painstakingly try out combinations of 16 digits until they come up with a series that fits someone's card number.
They grab gift cards found in most grocery stores and craft their own credit card or debit card -- shaving numbers off the gift cards with razor blades and gluing the right sequence onto a stolen bank card or a bank-issued gift card.
Police say the scam, called credit card shaving, is taking off in the Portland area. Victims usually are unaware that their accounts have been compromised.
"People don't understand it. They're scratching their heads. 'Nobody stole my mail. There was no burglary.' Their credit card number is being used, but their card is still in their purse or wallet," says Portland Officer Barbara Glass. "Most victims are spun-out worried, looking for some conspiracy clue. But it's just dumb luck they got hit."
The Identity Theft Assistance Center, based in Washington, D.C., wasn't aware of the scheme. But Joseph LaRocca, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention, says the scam has surfaced before throughout the country.
Thanks to Reed's close monitoring of his bank account online, police went to the Econo Lodge at Southeast 82nd Avenue and Holgate Boulevard on July 27 and found a woman had used his credit card number to rent Room 355.
The thief didn't need Reed's bank or debit cards, financial records, mail or credit card receipts. She hit on his account number by chance.
Like mathematicians searching for the right formula, such thieves painstakingly try out combinations of 16 digits until they come up with a series that fits someone's card number.
They grab gift cards found in most grocery stores and craft their own credit card or debit card -- shaving numbers off the gift cards with razor blades and gluing the right sequence onto a stolen bank card or a bank-issued gift card.
Police say the scam, called credit card shaving, is taking off in the Portland area. Victims usually are unaware that their accounts have been compromised.
"People don't understand it. They're scratching their heads. 'Nobody stole my mail. There was no burglary.' Their credit card number is being used, but their card is still in their purse or wallet," says Portland Officer Barbara Glass. "Most victims are spun-out worried, looking for some conspiracy clue. But it's just dumb luck they got hit."
The Identity Theft Assistance Center, based in Washington, D.C., wasn't aware of the scheme. But Joseph LaRocca, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention, says the scam has surfaced before throughout the country.
Thanks to Reed's close monitoring of his bank account online, police went to the Econo Lodge at Southeast 82nd Avenue and Holgate Boulevard on July 27 and found a woman had used his credit card number to rent Room 355.
Many of the self-made cards look as if they've been through a clothes dryer. "At first, I couldn't believe that merchants would take that stuff," says Glass' partner, Officer Dave Staab.
"Money Jones"
Portis, 35, who goes by the aliases "Money" or "Money Jones," told investigators she was just learning the credit card shaving scheme, court documents show. Yet, when Glass and Staab feigned ignorance and asked whether she could educate them, they say she didn't hold back.
"All of a sudden she became very animated," Glass recalls.
Portis told the officers how the scheme worked, according to a court affidavit: Typically, the thieves have to alter only the last four digits of a credit card. The first 12 digits are the same on many cards because it is the bank identification code. Using razor blades, they shave off the last four digits, then iron the card so that any raised edges are flattened. They shave off the numbers they need from another card, usually a gift card, and apply them with superglue to the card being altered.
Stolen bank or credit cards are often altered because they can be used with new numbers long after their owners have deactivated them. Bank-issued gift cards, which have no names or expiration dates, are also used.
Portis has been arrested multiple times in Portland. Investigators say she has operated with four or five other women as part of a Portland-area network. They suspect Portis acted as one of the "middle people."
doesn't go out and steal stuff, but people bring the cards to her," Glass says.
Two months after the Econo Lodge Motel arrest, Portis was picked up and accused of using a homemade credit card to buy DVDs at a Blockbuster Video in Northeast Portland. This time, an employee didn't accept the card, recognizing it had been altered. Portis told police she accidentally ran her card through the dryer, causing the numbers to partly melt, but officers didn't buy it.
On Jan. 10, Portland officers got a warrant to search Portis' home in the 13700 block of Southeast Stark Street. They found a stolen credit card belonging to Helen Pittman, whose car was broken into two months earlier in Northeast Portland. But Pittman's name had been shaved off and replaced by Ms. Aishish Portis.
Pittman, 57, a mortgage broker, told police that other items stolen included some of her client portfolios, her wallet and credit cards, and a ledger of business checks. When Pittman called to cancel her bank card, her bank mailed important forms to Portis' home, not Pittman's, because Portis had already changed the account address.
Investigators also found bags of paperwork next to Portis' bed, a box of razor blades and a copy of the state statute on computer crime.
Portis faced 132 counts of identity theft or fraudulent credit card use from at least three cases filed in Multnomah County, stemming from alleged criminal activity between October 2005 and January. Last year, Portis was arrested several times and each time released from custody days later. After her Jan. 10 arrest, she remained in custody because of the multitude of charges that had piled up.
On Friday, Portis pleaded guilty to 10 identity-theft felony charges and was sentenced to four years and four months in prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine to the state under a negotiated deal. Kevin Demer, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney, said the sentence was significant, considering she had no criminal record.
"How the heck . . . ?"
In a separate case, Javad Mashkuri noticed unfamiliar charges on his monthly debit card statement for sneakers, groceries from a 7-Eleven, and for United Cab company. "I was like . . . I didn't do that," he said. "It didn't make sense."
He asked his wife, who shares the account, whether she had made the purchases, but she hadn't. "Shoot, if I didn't lose my card, how the heck did this happen?" he asked himself.
Police traced the use of Mashkuri's account number to Charzetta James. Police say she tried to use a shaved credit card at a Safeway on Sept. 26. Employees questioned the validity of the card and called police. Glass discovered the number belonged to Mashkuri and alerted him of the fraud.
Mashkuri couldn't believe it when the officer explained how his card number was picked out of the blue.
"We generally tell them . . . it was the luck of the draw for you, buddy, sorry," Glass says.
The suspect ran up charges on Mashkuri's account before her arrest. "It took months to get it all straightened out," said Mashkuri, an emergency room doctor at OHSU.
Investigators say the best way to guard against the fraud is to closely monitor personal financial accounts, and for retailers not to accept cards when their magnetic strips aren't working.
Glass and her partner, Staab, remember watching a videotaped surveillance from a Big 5 Sporting Goods store where one of Portis' alleged accomplices used an altered credit card. They watched the clerk pause to closely examine the card, then make some phone calls. A manager came to take a look.
"We're yelling 'Stop! Don't take it! Don't take it!' " Staab recalls, like movie watchers trying to warn the hero. But the card was accepted.
"We see it over and over and over again," Staab says.
The officers suggest retailers "trust their gut" when a card doesn't look authentic and not accept cards with inoperable magnetic strips. Police and LaRocca agree that the scam is most successful at low-end stores with heavy customer traffic, where cashiers may be less diligent in examining cards.
Demer, the deputy district attorney, says the credit card shaving scam is surprisingly simple. "They make the credit cards match good numbers," he says. "This is a low bottom-feeder way, but it works."
