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Credit card fraud nearly leads Manny Pacquiao’s publicist to embarrassing purchase

Credit card fraud is never a good thing. And, sadly, there was a case of fraud with an American Express card owned by Denver resident Fred Sternburg in the early hours of Friday morning.

At least in this case, the fraud produced a bit of a laugh.

Sternburg received an email from Amex's fraud department on Friday, alerting him to a fraudulent charge of $75.25 that was made at a Cinemark movie theater.

As requested in the email, Sternburg phoned the fraud line, and expressed surprise that someone would try to charge $75.25 at a movie theater. It seemed high to him. He mentioned that to the agent and the agent said it was for a special event.

That's when it hit Sternburg -- Saturday's Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas is showing in movie theaters.

"I said to the guy, 'I'm Manny Pacquiao's publicist. I hope this isn't a ticket for the Mayweather fight,' " Sternburg, known throughout boxing for his jovial nature and playful ways, joked with the agent. "The guy told me, 'Well, you sound angry enough already, and I don't want to add fuel to the fire.' It was hilarious!"

So someone tried to commit fraud to buy a Mayweather ticket using Pacquiao's publicist's credit card.

It's just too bad that if they were going to commit fraud, they couldn't have tried to do it for a Mayweather-Pacquiao bout.