In four recent cases of identity theft reported to Darien police, one supermarket in town was twice defrauded by thieves, a Darien woman’s credit card information was used to buy items in Hamden and someone claiming to own a cell phone account used by a Darien family stole their service and bought several phones.
Sunday, March 6 at Stop & Shop
Stop & Shop supermarket in Goodwives Shopping Center, 25 Old Kings Hwy. S., reported credit card fraud cases on both Sunday, March 6 and Tuesday, March 8. On March 6, two men bought Visa gift cards with fraudulent credit cards.
One man used three different credit cards to buy $1,600 worth of gift cards. Together with the fees for the gift cards and assorted other items, the total came to $1,682.94. The clerk checked the man’s identification, and it matched the card.
At about the same time, another man used a credit card to buy $800 worth of gift cards along with other items for a total bill of $859.35.
The total haul: $2,542.29.
After the men had left, a woman called Stop & Shop and said her bank had just contacted her to tell her that $400 had just been charged to her account by the store, but she hadn’t shopped there and still had her credit card.
Images of the two men were on surveillance video records, police said.
Tuesday, March 8 at Stop & Shop
On Tuesday, the same store was hit by a different set of fraudulent transactions. In this case, two women used fake credit cards sometime before 8:18 p.m., when the matter was reported to police.
Each woman bought a gift card for $200 along with other items. The first woman presented a credit card that was declined, then one that was approved. The second woman’s transaction was approved at once. The purchases made by the pair amounted to a total of $480.81.
It turned out that the same credit card number was used by each woman.
The cashier thought the driver’s licenses presented by the women seemed a bit flimsy, but otherwise the licenses appeared to be in order. The clerk was suspicious enough to note that the women left the store in a white Nissan Altima.
Darien family’s cell phone account taken over
At about 12:50 p.m. Tuesday, March 8, police were told by a Darien resident that the resident’s family cell phone plan had been taken over by someone who bought four expensive smartphones on a payment plan charged to the account.
The fraudulent purchase had been made at the Apple Store in Danbury and left the family without cell phone service.
Darien’s woman credit card information used in Hamden
On Thursday evening, March 10, a Darien woman told police that her credit card had been used fraudulently the day before to buy items from Stop & Shop in Hamden, a store where she’s never shopped.
She still had her credit card with her, she said. But she said she received three emails from the company that issued her Capital One Visa Card to tell her these various purchases had been made:
- The first email, at 9:50 p.m. — $558.38 charged
- Second email, 9:51 p.m. — $547.91
- Third email, 9:57 p.m. — $579.41