> Google says the card number can be stolen using a skimmer, then use a magnetic card writer on a blank card to create a cloned physical credit card.

This is almost certainly what happened. The last time I had this, I used my card at a restaurant in Ridgewood and within 20 minutes I got pings that it was being used (and declined) at stores in Paramus and Ramsey. Luckily this was back when I used a Google Wallet card, so I'd only keep a few bucks on it and transfer amounts onto it as needed for exactly this situation. My guess is that the waiter in the restaurant skimmed the card and gave it straight to a couple of friends to try to use it right away, but Ridgewood PD refused to look into it and when I tried to give the restaurant owner a heads-up that someone was skimming cards in the place she just screamed at me over the phone and said nobody there would ever do that. At this point I almost never use a physical card anymore to avoid this crap.