Charge!

To many a person wary of thieves, traveler's checks and credit cards are better than cash. Thieves agree. Precisely because the cards and checks are not legal tender, a smart crook knows that he is usually safer stealing or forging them than he is stealing or forging the real thing. In many states, lifting a credit card amounts to nothing more than lifting a penny's worth of plastic: serious crime may occur only when the issuing company is actually defrauded. The situation is much the same with traveler's checks. As a result, a man found in possession of a stolen or forged card or check may not be guilty of a serious crime unless police can prove that he personally has misused it.

The loss caused by such relatively hard-to-trace misuse amounts to an estimated $50 million a year, and the average is growing rapidly. Last week police in Manhattan were busy wrapping up a gang that had defrauded Diners Club of at least $350,000. The gang, which had Mafia links, had stolen hundreds of blank Diners Club cards, impressed legitimate cardholders' names on them, and sold them to various underworld figures complete with such forged subsidiary identification as driver's licenses.* Gang members then traveled, ate, and charged lavishly, using the cards. Even when they are not liable, issuing companies almost always assume the financial burden of such fraud to maintain good relations with stores, hotels and restaurants who accept their cards. (But the credit-card companies may try to recover from a cardholder who has not informed them of a loss or theft.) The issuers are therefore understandably anxious to find heavier legal weapons to use against credit crooks, and they are now actively promoting new legislation.

Texas Senator John Tower is sponsoring a bill that will bring traveler's checks that cross state lines under the purview of the federal Criminal Code: it has been passed by the Senate and is now awaiting House action. American Express last year commissioned the drafting of a model credit-card law for states, which suggests maximum penalties of one to three years for such offenses as card theft or possession of forging machinery or blanks. With the backing of every other major credit card issuer, the statute is being pushed in all states. So far, North Carolina, Florida and California have all adopted it. New York has scheduled consideration of it for next January's legislative session.

* In some cases, the identification also included forged Government-agent I.D. cards. One crook with more than his share of gall actually checked into one hotel using a card made put in the name of an agent who was chasing him.

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