So, all this month, from locations ranging from down here in the south bay all the way up to Vallejo, there's been a rash of people stealing cars by renting with fraudulent credit cards. My branch had two cars stolen like this earlier in the month, and one of the branches in the east bay had 2 cars stolen as early as last tuesday.

Now, having compared notes with other branches, everyone had a similar M.O: African American woman in her mid 20's, heavyset, renting with an out of state drivers' license and credit cards that wouldn't swipe in our system. Also, they'd generally get antsy when the rental would take too long.

Cut to about 4 this afternoon when I come back into the office from picking up a car from the body shop and I find one of my employees renting to a african american woman with an Illinois license. He's stalling and everything, telling the customer that he has to clean the car, etc.

Meanwhile, I call the police and while I'm describing the subject, she's waiting on the street outside and starts walking away. I follow her about 150 ft back, talking to the dispatcher as we're walking down a residential st behind our branch when I see her throw something into the bushes in a nearby planter. Right at that point, MVPD shows up and I give our statement.

Bout an hour later, it's more or less all over. The girl gave a different name than the license she provided (and then ditched), the credit card was fake, etc. And all the while we're busting out rentals and returns like it ain't no thing.

So, after it's all said and done (around 5:30), I'm sending an email to MVPD for everything we've got on the information on these girls and I'm on the phone with my boss describing this, when I get a text from my employee saying "Another 1???? Come help me with this rental". I go up, and sure enough, another chick, this time with a Texas license and an even more fake looking credit card. So I get on the phone with the cops while my employee makes a big show about showing her around to all the cars. In about 10 minutes, we have half of MVPD showing up at our office, and not only was this girl using a fake credit card (I called the number on the back. Went to a US Bank credit card line, but everything on the card read Chase), but she had an accomplice who had another 8 fake credit cards. To top it off, they also had the keys to ANOTHER rental car, this one flagged as stolen from out of Vallejo.

If this isn't a feather in our caps, I dunno what is!