An important distinction between various types of payment card offenses was whether the offender had lawful possession of the card or whether the card had been unlawfully obtained by someone else. According to the study, the card owner was responsible for about one-third of payment card offenses. When the card owner misused the card, most cases involved exceeding the credit limit or using a bank card for payments even though the account had insufficient funds. A payment card belonging to someone else was usually used to buy goods and services. In addition, the offender often succeeded in using the payment card to withdraw money from the owner's account at an automatic teller machine. Analysis of police reports showed that, in three of four cases, the victim's payment card had been stolen. In 20 percent of cases, someone apparently kept a lost card; in 6 percent of cases, the victim lost the card in the course of a robbery. In theft cases, the object in question was almost always the victim's wallet, handbag, or shopping bag. Persons misusing a payment card generally acted alone; there was no evidence of organized crime involvement. Those guilty of payment card offenses were not predominantly first-time offenders. During 1988, payment card offenses caused a loss of roughly $2.5 million.