Blotter: Gift card scam
- On Nov. 21, a Southold woman reported being the victim of a scam. She applied for a Costco membership through a website called Stack Social. But upon entering a Costco, she was told there was no record of her membership. The woman then dialed “a number her husband had Googled for PayPal support” and spoke to a man who claimed that multiple transactions ha been made on woman’s MasterCard through her PayPal account. He told her to download an app that gave him access to her phone screen. She was then transferred to a woman who told her that in order to track the suspects, she would need to go to Home Depot and buy two $500 Nordstrom’s gift cards. The woman did so, using a Sears MasterCard, and scratched off the access codes as directed. She gave the codes to the woman on the phone, after being told she would be reimbursed. The woman then realized she was being scammed and contacted Nordstrom’s, according to police. She advised them to stop payment on the cards and the company said it would put a watch on those codes. They were used the next day anyway, she told police. She contacted Nordstrom’s again, asking for the locations where the gift cards were used, but the company declined, and would not reimburse her, according to police. She contacted the Federal Trade Commission, the credit bureaus and her bank.
- On Nov. 18, a Southold man reported that after being away for the weekend, he returned home to find two burned cellphones in his fire pit. A responding detective photographed the area and retrieved the phones. The homeowner doesn’t know who made the fire or whose cell phones those were, according to police.
- On Nov. 18, a resident found a wallet on Main Road in Cutchogue and turned it over to police. The wallet turned out to belong to Cutchogue 17-year-old. While checking its contents, however, the officer found a fake ID. The teen and his mother were interviewed and “advised of the severity of possessing a fake ID.” The mother promised to discipline her son. The wallet was returned; the fake ID was secured in the police property room to be destroyed.
- On Nov. 21, a Mattituck homeowner reported to police that a certain car kept driving past her Legion Avenue home. A responding officer located the car based on her description and spoke with the driver. He told the officer that he was playing “Pokemon Go,” an augmented reality game that uses mobile phones with GPS to locate and capture cartoon figures in real-world locations. The man said, “Legion Ave. is a known Pokemon route.” The driver showed the officer his phone, which showed numerous Pokemon hidden in the area. No further action was taken.
- On Nov. 22, a Southold Highway Department employee reported a dispute with a co-worker to police. Around 1 p.m. that day, the co-worker had grabbed the man’s glasses from his face and thrown a plastic garbage can that hit him in the head. The man told police he didn’t know why the co-worker would attack him, but that “it possibly stemmed from an earlier argument about equipment maintenance.” The worker who made the report said he was frustrated after being suspended over the incident. Police spoke to the co-worker, who told investigators that his colleague had repeatedly called him a vulgar name, and had complained that he would not “confront him like a man.” That’s when the co-worker “lost his temper,” and broke his [colleague’s] glasses and dumped a garbage can contents on him. According to police, a supervisor to whom both men report to confirmed these events. The parties were advised to stay away from one another.
- On Nov. 23, a Greenport man reported to police that he had mailed a $5,000 check to his granddaughter in Brooklyn, who never received it. He said that his bank advised him that the check was altered and cashed by someone else. The bank advised the 87-year-old man to file a police report.
- On Nov. 23, a Point Lookout woman contacted Southold police to report that someone had broken into the detached garage on her Mattituck property at some point on Nov. 9, and that she hasn’t been back in Southold in two to three weeks.
- On Nov. 23, a Southold woman reported to police that her credit card was used to send $1,800 via Western Union three days earlier. She told police she used that credit card that same day to place an ad with The Suffolk Times. She was advised to notify the newspaper.
Those who are named in police reports have not been convicted of any crime or violation. The charges against them may later be reduced or withdrawn, or they may be found innocent.
