OK. It's over. Lucky me.

Bought 3K of VR cards that had been tampered with. Last 4 of pin removed and a sticker placed over the numbers.

How could I have been so stupid? Who knows? I never even looked or thought to look.

The cards came from behind the counter Chicago CVS on 520 S. State St @ 02-12, 17.39.

No VR on the rack, after asking, the sales clerk looked around, found them behind the counter, Asst. manager said, "not for sale" later I questioned why, and the manger allowed the sale.

I was begging to be ripped off?

The cards came from behind the counter so I thought management was in on the scam, but since the money was still on the card 14-21 hours later. Maybe not.

Thought it was hard scraping for the pin today. Then, that I might have used too much force with the coin and removed the last 4 digits of the pin.

Slowly reality and horror sunk in and... an indescribable out of body feeling realizing it was all 6 cards, 6 from the same store and 3K bye, bye.

Wow!

Amazingly, at 07.00 the money was still on the card and after a frantic day on the phone and running around the loop searching for MyVanilla cards - VR agents said they would put the VR money on MyVanilla. Other cards also, but VR transaction prices seemed OK and the other cards were unknowns.

VR CS were calm. The money was on the VR cards, so what's the problem? All they needed was the serial number, 6 of the ten digits and solid proof I was telling the truth and they'd do the transfer.

They did not see how clearly the VR cards had been tamper with.

For my part, thinking any second the thieves would take the money off the card, my day was long and uncomfortable.

It's amazing the money was still on the VR cards. Somebody missed a huge, granted illegal, 3K opportunity.

I'm so lucky.

Maybe the cards were pulled from the rack, the bad people realized they were "caught" after they disappeared but were never loaded and just stopped checking.

The cards were so obviously tampered with, a bad job, but the sticker sort of maybe, but not really, matched the previous rub off coloring.

But just looking at it, a decent glance, would easily reveal it was fake.

I am so lucky. From depths of despair (and feeling like a fool) and more frantic despair, to safety. A good day.