"Racket"

If you wanted to organize a good "racket," with department stores as your particular victims, you might work it out this way: Send Miss T -- to New York or Chicago or Philadelphia, $300 in her pocketbook. Tell her to pick the name of some reputable citizen from the telephone book, then start an account in her name at a local bank, using the good check as a first deposit. This done, she could go shopping. For each article she buys, she gives a check, double the purchase price, asking for the balance in cash. Cautious department stores do not accept checks without investigation. Credit men telephone the bank, discover Miss T-- has a $300 balance, apologize profusely and urge her to open a charge account. Graciously, she consents, moves on to another store to repeat the performance. But at 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon, before the array of checks can reach the bank, Miss T-- withdraws her deposit, hastens home to you with her purchases and a tidy roll of bills. If you were generous, you might allow her a 25% commission on her earnings before speeding her to another city. This, as a matter of fact, is the exact "racket" with which the National Surety Co. last week charged an organized swindling ring, employing 40 girls, operating in many a U. S. city. Recent arrests in Philadelphia provided the clue. Alarmed by 140,000 claims from stores in two years, the National Surety Co. pressed the investigation.