Timeshare Scam At The Galleria*

Mike at Franklin Avenue filled out one of those "Win a car!" contest entry forms at the Glendale Galleria and found himself targeted by a dishonest timeshare company. Read his account here.

Beyond dodgy timeshare schemes, Glendale has an appalling rate of fraud and identity theft, so be extremely wary of giving out your personal information and don't let your credit card out of your sight.

Over the last several years myself and many of my co-workers in Glendale have had our credit cards compromised. Frequently the method is for a restaurant server or sales clerk to discreetly swipe the credit card through a skimmer that stores credit card numbers. Those numbers are later reencoded onto the magnetic strips of other credit cards and used to make fraudulent purchases. Because of this, I avoid using plastic unless its a self swipe machine.

*Update: Here's a description of of a typical identity theft arrest from the Glendale PD activity log.

Identity Theft Arrest – Wednesday, November 26, 2008:
Officers conducted a probation search at the 400 block of West California. During the probation search, three bags of stolen mail, numerous credit cards, CDL’S credit profiles, a card skimmer, a computer and two stolen guns were located. One of the guns was stolen out of Azusa and the other was stolen out of LAPD Mission Area. The probationer was arrested.