What police say a Manteca suspect was doing that finally caught up with her
Manteca police are looking for a woman whose luck finally ran out after she committed fraud multiple times at a liquor store.
Over the past two weeks, the woman had defrauded Miner Mart by using a prepaid card that had no funds. Each time, the card reader would not accept the transaction.
"The suspect gave the store clerk a story about how certain buttons need to be pressed on their card reader machine to bypass the card not being accepted. The transaction went through once this was done," Manteca Police Department spokesman Sgt. Mike Aguilar wrote on Facebook on Monday morning.
In each instance, it was several days before the transaction was declined by the bank because there was no money on the card. Sunday afternoon, the woman again tried the scam at Miner Mart, 1046 W Yosemite Ave., to buy alcohol and cigarettes.
But the clerk was aware of the prior fraud. When the clerk kept the card and picked up a telephone, the woman fled the store, Aguilar said. The suspect is described as blond and heavyset. In the parking lot, she got into a white Mitsubishi (with paper plates) driven by a black male.
The fraud isn't anything new, Aguilar said. It's basically a modern version of credit card information theft that occurred when cards were run through machines that used carbon paper. Punching in the card number lets the transaction proceed without the scanner, he said.
"The chips now make it harder, and a lot of places are pretty good about, 'If the chip doesn't work, we're not taking it.'"
Many prepaid cards don't have chips, so his advice to store clerks is simply, "If a card is not reading, ask for another card or another form of payment."
Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call Manteca Officer Robert Argo at 209-456-8186 or email him at rargo@ci.manteca.ca.us. Reference case 2018-02694.
This story was originally published January 22, 2018 at 10:31 AM with the headline "What police say a Manteca suspect was doing that finally caught up with her."