The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey Page A

in."
    The storekeeper sounded pleased at the prospect of an easy thirty dollars. For the Keycharge system it was also a good deal since the card, left in circulation, could h ave been used fraudulently for a much greater total amount.
    Wainwright removed his headset; so did Alex Vandervoort. "It works well," Wainwright said, "when we get the information and can program the computer. Unfortunately most of the defrauding happens before a missing card's reported." "But we still get a warning of excessive purchasing?"
    "Right. Ten purchases in a day and the computer alerts us."
    Few cardholders, as both men were aware, ever made more than six or eight purchases during a single day. Thus a card could be listed as "PROBABLY FRAUDULENT' even though the true owner might be unaware of its loss.
    Despite all warning systems, however, a lost or stolen Keycharge card, if used cagily, was still good for twenty thousand dollars' worth of fraudulent purchasing in the week or so during whic h most stolen cards stayed un reported. Airline tickets for long-distance flights were favorite buys by credit-card thieves; so were cases of liquor. Both were then resold at bargain prices. Another ploy was to rent a car preferably an expensive one Using a stolen or counterfeit credit card. The car was driven to another city where it received new license plates and forged registration papers, and was then sold or exported. The rental agency never saw car or customer again. One more gimmick was to buy jewelry in Europe on a fraudulent credit card backed up by a forged passport, then smuggle the jewelry into the U.S. for resale. In all such instances the credit-card company bore the eventual loss.
    As both Vandervoort and Wainwright knew, there were devices used by criminals to decide whether a credit card in their possession could be used again, or if it was "hot." A favorite was to pay a headwaiter twenty-five dollars to check a card out. He could get the answer easily by consulting a weekly confidential "warning list" issued by the credit-card company to merchants and restaurants. If the card was unreported as hot, it was used for a further round of buying.
    "We've been losing a helluva lot of money through fraud lately," Nolan Wainwright said. "Much more than usual. It's one of the reasons I wanted to talk."
    They moved into a Keycharge security office which Wainwright had arranged to use this afternoon. He closed the door. The two men were much in contrast physically
    Vandervoort, fair, chunky, non-athletic, with a touch of flab; Wainwright, black, tall, trim, hard, and muscular. Their personalities differed, too, though their relationship was good.
    "This is a contest without a prize," Nolan Wainwright told the executive vice-president. He placed on the office desk eight plastic Keycharge credit cards, snapping them down like a poker dealer, one by one.
    "Four of those credit cards are counterfeit," the security chief announced. "Can you separate the good ones from the bad?" "Certainly. It's easy. The counterfeits always use different typefaces for embossing the cardholder's name and…" Vandervoort stopped, peering down at the group of cards. "By God! These don't. The typeface is the same on every card."
    "Almost the same. If you know what to look for, you can detect slight divergences with a magnifier." Wainwright produced one. Dividing the cards into two groups, he pointed to variations between the embossing on the four genuine cards and the others.
    Vandervoort said, "I see the difference, though I wouldn't have without the glass. How do the counterfeits look under ultraviolet?" "Exactly the same as real ones." "That's bad."
    Several months earlier, following an example set by American Express, a hidden insignia had been imprinted on the face of all authentic Keycharge credit cards. It became visible only under ultraviolet light. The intention was to provide a quick, simple check of any card's genuineness. Now that safeguard, too, had been