Pen pals

Credit card owners must avoid losing them to snatchers. One person lost his card and his wife started getting notifications from the issuing bank about purchases made using it.

Charged to the person’s credit card were two gold bracelets worth half a million pesos, four mobile phones, several reams of cigarettes, medicines and vitamins, GMA News reported. The purchases then stopped as the credit limit was reached.

It was too late when the card owner had it blocked by the bank. The victim’s son told GMA News his father may have lost the card and other IDs to a pickpocket at a grocery store.

The thief then pretended to be the card owner and copied the signature of the victim from the card and other stolen IDs to sign the purchase receipts.

Snatchers also strike in the countryside though they are not after credit cards.

In Oton, Iloilo, CCTV footage showed a riding-in-tandem couple’s daring exploit in Barangay Abilay Norte one night last week.

In the video featured on GMA Regional TV, the riders stopped on the road and disembarked to enter an animal pen. Seconds later, they walked back to their motorcycle, pulling two goats with a rope.

The thieves then rode off, carrying the stolen billies with them.