I recently had my bank card number stolen. (I'm not the only one.) A duplicate card was used in Georgia, where I haven't been in months. According to Wells Fargo, it's likely that the thieves used a machine to capture my card information at the point of sale, and create a new card.
The card's been canceled, the money's back on the way into the account, and everything's fine, except for the stores that got ripped off, or their insurance companies, or their policy-holders, or else someone's attorneys. But the fact is, there's almost nothing I could have done to prevent this.
I'm planning on filing a report with the Denver police, but it's possible that the card could have been ripped off anywhere I've been. If the crooks were patient enough to wait six months between theft and use, it could even have been in Atlanta. Still, there's a decent chance of catching the guys who used the card. The only disappointment being that they're almost certainly part of a bigger criminal operation, and that we'll never touch the ringleaders.
Maybe they'll let me drive the van from the courthouse to prison.