Brampton pizza scam victim who lost more than $4K speaks out
CBC
A Brampton mother says her family has taken a major financial hit after falling victim to a pizza delivery scam.
Samjhana Shrestha said she thought she was doing a nice thing when a teenager approached her in a grocery store parking lot and asked her to pay for their pizza delivery with her debit card. The teen told her the Domino's driver wouldn't accept the cash they had.
She did, and took the teen's cash in exchange, only to later realize she was the victim of an elaborate fraud. The scammers behind it cleared some $4,300 out of her chequing account.
Shrestha, who recently gave birth to her second child, said the loss means her family is out "big money."
"The cost of formula is going up. The interest of mortgage is going high. All of the things are going up … you can imagine how hard this is for us," she told CBC Toronto.
Shrestha filed a report with Peel Regional Police and with Scotiabank, but she's no better off more than a month after the incident. Meanwhile, three Greater Toronto Area police forces have issued public warnings about the same scam in recent weeks, though there have been no arrests.
Even Domino's is now issuing warnings so people can protect themselves from being duped.
Shrestha said she's going public with her story in hope that it will prevent others from going through the same thing as she did.
Shrestha's ordeal began on March 22 at around 7:30 p.m. in a Fortinos parking lot off Quarry Edge Drive.
The teenager said she could keep his $20 bill if she could pay for the pizza with her card.
She initially tried to pay for the pizza with her credit card, but the man posing as a delivery driver, who she said looked to be in his 30s, told her it wouldn't work and asked if she could use debit, instead.
Unfortunately for her, she did.
The point-of-sale machine she was handed looked normal, she said, but the tap feature didn't work. Shrestha is still unsure how the fraud happened from here.
She said she remembers inserting her card and said she was holding it for the entire time she used her pin number.
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