Possibly Ripped Off By Employee Of A Business, Can The Business Be Held Liable ?

[51MEANTXGUNS50]

A would be thief tried to make a 360 dollar purchase with my cash card, but unbeknownst to him or her, I receive electronic alerts when a purchase over 250 gets made on it. Not a real bank card so they couldn't assist me in terms of disputing the charge but I was able to get a hold of the customer service where the purchase was made and get the order cancelled as well as report it as fraud all in one fell swoop.


What the shitbird who did this doesn't know is that the card he pinched the # off of is a cash card I use exclusively for cash withdrawals, amazon.com purchases, and food purchases. I retraced my steps and noticed that two places I get food from still use those old fashion credit card devices that imprint the card # on a double layered slip. It doesn't take a genius to see that more than likely an employee of either of these places prolly memorized the cvv on the back and copied down my #. The restraunts are part of popular food chains but this being the RGV, most of the employees are a little hood if you catch drift (the manager of the restraunt I suspect the most has Chola written all over her).


If hypothetically this were the case, what are my chances of being able to successfully pursue the matter legally and making a nice little chunk of change off either of these restraunt franchises ? I mean after all, I was a victim of credit card fraud, which was committed by their employees, who did this on their time. I'm not greedy or lawsuit happy but I think what they did was pretty low as I'm on disability at the moment and I do think that warrants a little compensation, but that's just one man's opinion. Any advice ?

[ShysterJon]

I think before you start dreaming of the windfall damages you think you'll get, you may want to find some proof that your card number was stolen at one of the restaurants. Right now, you have "nada" (as one of the people you make disparaging, race-based comments might say).

Also, even if you had proof a restaurant was at fault, you'd still lose because you suffered no damages. No purchase was made with your card.

¡Qué lástima, cabrón!

[Yoyoma]

Perform a google search to see if there are other noted ID theft breaches from the 2 places / parent companies you suspect. It could be part of a larger problem.

In the event that you do stumble upon something, you would most likely be limited to "x" number of years of free credit monitoring service paid for by the offending organization - because as the Shyster put it, you have been made whole [i.e. suffered no damages].

[thatdude210]

Originally Posted by ShysterJon

I think before you start dreaming of the windfall damages you think you'll get, you may want to find some proof that your card number was stolen at one of the restaurants. Right now, you have "nada" (as one of the people you make disparaging, race-based comments might say).

Also, even if you had proof a restaurant was at fault, you'd still lose because you suffered no damages. No purchase was made with your card.

¡Qué lástima, cabrón!

I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that you don't have to actually suffer a loss in order to sue. The exception to that being contract law...where you can only sue for damages you suffered.

[Waldo P. Emerson-Jones]

You don't have to suffer any damages to sue; only if you want to recover!

Also, even if you could establish that an employee at a particular restaurant was responsible, generally employers would not be liable for their employees criminal actions, even if done on company time.

[ck1942]

Since your card data was compromised, the best (and first thing! to do) way to prevent further action on the card is get a new card with new data. And if you are going to visit places where the card might be compromised, hit the ATM often enough to keep 40-50 bucks in your jeans.

Something else to consider: have two cards preferably from different issuers and split your cash between the accounts. That way if one is hijacked, you still have access to the other one if the hijacked account is frozen for investigation.