U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, who has made identity theft one of her priorities, has a new perspective on the crime -- as a victim.

	Gene J. Puskar, Associated Press
	U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan had her credit card number stolen while dining in San Francisco.

At the same San Francisco restaurant where she and her husband, Tom, had their first dinner as a honeymoon couple in 1990, someone on the staff apparently swiped her credit card number last month.

"What happened to me is something I've been talking about for the last couple of years," she said yesterday in her Downtown office. "It truly shows that this can happen to anyone."

Buchanan was in San Francisco on April 18 for a seminar on corporate fraud when she had lunch at her favorite restaurant in Union Square.

She won't identify it because federal agents are conducting an investigation there, but she said a staffer skimmed her Visa card using a "wedge," a device thieves use to gain information from the magnetic strips on credit cards.

Typically, a waiter or waitress hides the wedge in an apron, swipes the cards through the wedge and makes counterfeit cards to ring up fraudulent purchases.

It's exactly what Scott Zimmerman, 22, a former waiter at Don Pablo's Mexican Kitchen in North Fayette, was doing as part of a theft ring prosecuted by Buchanan's office last year.

Often, unsuspecting diners don't find out about the thefts until much later, but Buchanan said she got lucky. The next evening, she tried to use her card to buy a new suit before her trip home.

When the card wouldn't go through, the store owner called Visa. A company representative told Buchanan that Visa had flagged a $31.45 purchase made at 5 a.m. that day for computer equipment ordered over the phone.

Buchanan said the company told her the purchase was "out of pattern" for her shopping habits.

Credit card companies keep track of the buying patterns of customers and "red flag" any purchases that seem odd.

Buchanan knew she didn't buy anything at 5 a.m., so she canceled the account.

If she hadn't tried to buy the suit, she said, the thief likely would have rung up many more charges before she used the card and discovered the fraud.

The $31 purchase was small, but it's typical of skimmers.

"They try to use the card for small transactions first," she said, "to make sure it goes through."

If the card works, the thieves often run up large numbers of purchases in a short time, something else the credit card companies look for.

In talks to citizens' groups about identity theft, Buchanan has often said one way to avoid it is to never give your credit card to anyone.

But in the real world, she admitted, that can be unrealistic, especially in a restaurant where you have eaten many times and have some trust in the staff.

Last year, Buchanan announced a roundup of 50 people on charges of stealing credit card numbers. In 2002 she announced a similar roundup of 24, including a man from Duquesne who made $81,000 in purchases using a credit card in the name of Steven D. Smith of the Atlanta Hawks.

And in the late 1990s, federal prosecutors jailed a ring of Asian employees skimming cards at the China Palace in Sewickley, Tai Pei in Shadyside and Kotobuki Japanese restaurant in McCandless.

Buchanan said the San Francisco restaurant has been her favorite in that city since her honeymoon, and the service has always been excellent.

"The only way to prevent this is if you use cash or go up to the counter and pay," she said. "Like most customers, I gave my credit card to the waitress and waited for her to return. I would never have expected that this would happen."

Buchanan said she expects agents in San Francisco will catch the thieves. When they do, it's a safe bet the government won't have to worry about the credibility of its chief witness.