Ricardo's Theory on Bill's decision to commit Credit Card Fraud:
The Mind of a Criminal
(Theories and Psychology)
Part 1
For a long time, after this happened to us, I sat up late at night and thought about the whole incident. I thought long & hard and after many hours of racking my brain about it all, I decided that I could never fully understand what he was going through mentally because my upbringing and my morals would prevent me from doing something so assinine and juvenile. There is a social trigger, a conscience, if you will, in most of us that signals us when we are about to do something stupid. It's the law of the jungle. Survival. Except nowadays, survival to most of us means staying out of jail and having our lives ruined. This trigger prevents me from understanding what Bill did. I imagine that (though not immune to temptation) a number of warning bells and whistles would have gone off in my head warning me about the impending dangers of Credit Card theft and Fraud and the possible negative ways my life would be affected by it.

So after exhausting my brain, I had no direct answers, but I did have some theories about it all. These are my attempts at understanding the psyche and decision making that went into his whole stupid choice. In no way do I claim to understand all the complicated ways that the human brain works, nor do I claim to understand criminal psychology. I simply think: "If I was a stupid moron, what might be going through my mind as I do this?" These are my answers......
Desperate times call for desperate masures. Impatience & lack of foresight. That's the thinking that leads to a lot of dumb choices being made.

When Bill stole our credit card, there were a lot of extenuating circumstances around it all. He owed our basketball team 200$ for registration, he owed my wife and I about 1 1/2 months worth of rent (though we were not demanding it or threatening him in any way about it), and with the summer season approaching, he wanted to play baseball and had to pay registration there (I'm not going to even hazard a guess at that one). Later, while cleaning out his room after the whole incident happened, my wife and I found a couple of lists detailing all the people who he owed money to including how much he owed. The list was pretty big and ran up about a couple of grand over the last few years. With all these people asking for money, what's a guy to do?

He had been laid off of work at around the same time as I was (mid January). And he had made an effort (an extremely weak effort, mind you) to look for a job. He would look through the want ads and circle the jobs he wanted to take. My wife and I noticed, however, that for a guy looking for work, he was being extremely picky about jobs. He only circled jobs that payed over 9$/hour and only those that did not involve anything physical. We made numerous comments (some even to him) that a guy who is as desperate as he was for work shouldn't be so picky about work. He was so stressed out that he barely got any sleep. He was only getting a few hours sleep at night, and he would sleep later into the day. By the time he woke up, though, most of the day had gone by and he was unable to apply because the businesses were closed. I imagined this made him feel worse and so then he would stress and stay up late worrying. It was a vicious circle.

I theorize that one day, out of desperation for money he went rummaging through our posessions. He found the Credit Card and took it. I theorize that he spent a day or three with it, wondering if he should use it, alarms and warning bells going off in his head like crazy. Eventually, I guess that he was so desperate for funds that he decided to use it. Consequences be damned.

I theorize that he had it worked out that he would take a little at first, and pay us back. After all, he was scared shitless of being caught, and he KNEW it was wrong. I imagine he rationalized it like this: "I'll take for what I need and once I get a job I'll pay it back without them ever knowing." A few weeks passed and he realized he had not been caught yet, so kept going at it. I think in the back of his mind he had always intended to "pay us back" though HOW he would do that had never even entered his brain yet.
The Last Word:
Imagine that you let someone into your home. Imagine that you actually trusted this person. Could be a good friend, an old acquaintance or even a family member. Imagine that they took advantage of your trust and destroyed any faith you had left in humanity ....

That has been our lives for the past few months. I find I am even second guessing people I never doubted before. It's really a shame that one person could cause basically a cascade effect throughout your entire social life. And people say to us: "Oh just give it time, you'll get over it eventually." But the truth is that I'm not sure if I do. See, I don't ever want to experience this again. This has truly been one of the most unnerving experiences I've ever had. And to say that I'm going to forget it or cast it aside and place myself at the risk of it happening again? Hell no. Yes, one person's actions should not reflect on the way that you treat or react to everyone else, but still ....

See, if it had been a complete stranger, it might have been different. A complete stranger, I can understand not caring about us or our situation, but for a person who is living under your roof? A person who you helped? A person who you opened your home and life to take advantage of you like that? It's almost inhuman!

Where have honor and trust gone today in society when the very people you consider friends may be the next criminal you have to protect yourself against? No amount of reasoning should ever force you to bite the hand that feeds you. It's a fundamental mistake! It's no wonder people the world over are so paranoid and skeptic about each other. Thanks a lot Bill! Thanks for giving us all another reason to fear & doubt! Way to control your pre-pubescent urges and way to show some self control!