Paula's Ponderings

The Ex knows how to game the system – the system lets criminals keep on crime-ing.

So today, Monday January 23rd 2023, I filed a police report for credit card fraud. Chandler AZ police report number: #23–9226.

Let me make this perfectly clear — I own 3 Short Term Rentals (STR). I created an LLC in 2018 to manage these rentals for tax purposes. Trash is in no way associated to the LLC nor is he on any deed of these properties.

He offered, as a boyfriend, to be the primary contact for one of my properties located in Chandler AZ. All other properties are managed by property managers. He offered — he said he wasn’t busy and could do it, and I mistakenly accepted.  Because he was the main contact for this property, I gave him access to my credit cards. The purpose was to purchase items for the rental property only.

Trash had access to two of my credit cards (account numbers no longer active):

• card ending in 7767, a personal credit card I used for business management until early 2022.
• card ending in 4757, a business credit card, associated to the LLC I used to support my STR business. Created in early 2022.

Once I created the small business account with Bank of America that was directly tied to my LLC, I switched from using 7767 and began using 4757. This happened early 2022. I got a credit card in Trash’s name so that he could purchase materials needed to sustain a short term rental, i.e. shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, etc..

I cut Trash off from the business credit card (ending in 4757) on Aug 24th 2022 when I found out he was living with his new girlfriend Laura. He of course was livid. Once he knew it was over — that I wasn’t buying his lies, he began using the first card he had access to. I thought he gave the credit card back, but clearly he did not.

We broke up on August 24th 2022. He began using the card on September 8th 2022. I did not realize this until I received the statement. There should not have been any charges on the card as I had migrated to the credit card associated with my business (ending in 4757) and the personal card (7767) was dormant.

Somehow Trash still had the card. And he began using it in September 2022, mere weeks after we broke up. By Sept. 16th 2022, he had charged a total of $1057.62 to the card. When I learned of the charges, I filed a credit card fraud case with Bank of America:

He clearly made charges for gas, Amazon purchases, and even tried to hire a lawyer — Cardis Law Group — I assume to help him fight the eviction case I started on Sept. 8th 2022 (story here: The Eviction Process).

Ultimately Bank of America found all these charges fraudulent.

Given this confirmation from Bank of America, I filed a Police Report with the Chandler AZ police department (Police Report #23–9226). I filed the report with Officer Swanson. He took the report then called Trash to get his side. Officer Swanson called me back and stated that Trash did admit to making the charges stating that the card had his name on it. That’s some kind of logic isn’t it???

Officer Swanson told me that because Trash did indeed have a card with his name on it, these charges to not meet the criteria for Credit Card fraud (like the DirectTV fraud does). So again, this has to be dealt with in Civil Court (along with all the stolen items They Steal What You Love — Part 1).

So once again, Trash gets away with NOT being held accountable in the criminal court system. It is ridiculous to me that conmen like this continue to get away with this — theft, fraud, active deception, and breach of trust/contract. Again, I go back to my experience that the system is set up for criminals to crime. Nothing more, nothing less.

The laws need to change. If there is anyone out there that knows how to change the laws and needs an advocate for why changes are needed, reach out to me. I will stand with you. These criminals need to be held accountable.

Lessons learned:

• NEVER mix business and personal. I will never ever again give access to my credit cards to anyone else. I will manage everything myself. If I begin to feel overwhelmed, I will sell a property or hire someone to help. Period.
• Always cancel credit cards you are not using. I did not do this because there were still some monthly charges that Trash was supposed to transition to the new card. He did not. I should have taken care of this.

At the end of the day, I will never be too busy with work and my side hustle to not protect myself. I will never trust a partner to do the right thing. I will make sure that I take care of anything and everything. Because at the end of the day, this is my livelihood.