Friday? Must Be Time For A Scam

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by Nicolás Medina Mora Pérez | May 16, 2012 5:05 pm

(7) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Legal Writes

Nicolás Medina Mora Pérez Photo “Tyrell Jenkins” rolled into town in a car with New York plates. He strolled into Pete Persano’s AT&T Wireless Store on Chapel and asked for two 64 GB IPads worth over $300 each. He pulled out a First United credit card—and Persano smelled a scam.

It happened last Friday.

Persano (pictured) has started receiving these visits on a regular basis—almost always, for some unknown reason, on Fridays.

Jenkins’ Pennsylvania driver’s license matched the name on his First United card. But when Persano checked online to see how the transaction had scanned on his terminal, he learned his scam sensor had smelled correctly: The number on Jenkins’ card was real, but it was not associated with First United. It belonged to a Bank of America account.

Persano called the police to alert them that one of the fraudsters they had been watching was currently in the store.

He then tried to stall “Jenkins”—it is unclear if this is his real name—by “accidentally” getting a 16 GB model instead of the requested 64GB model. Then Persano brought a white tablet instead of a black one.

After 30 minutes the customer’s own hunch kicked in: He realized the owner was on to him. He left the store before police arrived.

Persano has become somewhat of an expert on credit card scams. For the past three months, his small business, located across from the Green between Temple and College streets, has suffered near-weekly attempts at credit fraud. So far, the culprits have gotten away each time.

Jenkins’ attack was just the latest in this series of attempted scams at the store, according to Persano. All of them follow the same pattern: The fraudsters arrive in a car with New York plates, usually on Friday afternoons. They ask for the most expensive item in the store. They present a realistic credit card and matching out-of-state ID. When the storeowner swipes the card, the charge goes through—but the bill arrives in someone else’s mailbox.

“I’ve been taking them away one a week,” Persano said in an interview in his office as he flipped through dozens of Xeroxed credit and ID cards. “If they are doing it to us, they are probably doing it to other small businesses in the area. We want to catch one in the act, so that the others realize they have to stop.”

Other nearby small electronics retailers interviewed did not report similar problems. Cristopher Cournoo, who manages the T-Mobile store near the corner of Crown and Chapel streets, said that most of the transactions he oversees happen in cash or through debit cards, which makes his store less vulnerable to this kind of attacks.

Yet it is clear that suspicion hangs in the air. An employee at a nearby Sprint store refused to comment when this reporter was unable to produce a press ID.

“Who knows?” said the employee, who did not give his name. “For all I know, you are the one doing fraud.”

Fraudsters can easily make a fake card by obtaining a real credit number from the Internet, then pressing it into plastic with a specialized printer. In the video at left, Detective Bob Watts of the Newport Beach police department demonstrates how they do it.

The practice of duplicating a legitimate credit card with fraudulent intentions is known as “cloning.”

It is so widespread that instructional videos on how to do it can be found in YouTube (like the one at left).

According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, credit card cloning and other forms of identity teft have become increasingly more prevalent in the past decade. Unlike Arizona and California, Connecticut is not among the states with the highest rate of credit card fraud. At least unless Persano’s insidious visitors find a way to change that.

Comments

posted by: OccupyTheClassroom on May 16, 2012 8:40pm

Bring back cash.

posted by: trainspotter on May 17, 2012 3:58am

Why does it take that long to get an officer into the store?

posted by: cedarhillresident! on May 17, 2012 9:33am

@trainspotter
I was think the same thing. Now this guy is gone, he know New Haven is on to him. Half hour?

posted by: Curious on May 17, 2012 9:35am

I agree with Trainspotter. If there is a crime being actively committed, how on earth did it take cops 30 minutes to get to the store? Especially if they were watching this guy already! They couldn’t have sent someone from any area of New Haven? What about the walking beat cops?

OccupyTheClassroom, do you really think cash is the answer? Do you really think walking around with six hundred dollars in cash on you in New Haven is a brilliant idea? Maybe if this was Fairfield, that might be an option, but it’s New Haven, and we have a little bit too much crime to walk around with multiple-iPad-buying cash on-hand.

posted by: Walt on May 18, 2012 6:13am

Per the story, it was actually more than a 30 minute delay as it does not say when the cops finally showed up .

Either way, a follow -up with the PD would seem worthwhile

posted by: Curious on May 18, 2012 10:06am

NHI, any follow-up on this?

posted by: Cinderella on May 19, 2012 9:13am

When my son worked at Target in West Haven, this kind of fraud happened all the time only with those infamous gift cards. Don’t ask me how they did it, but teams of fraudsters would sweep in and buy up ipads and iphones and iPods until Target caught on to them after the employees notified them of suspicious activity.
Lesson is: examine your credit card and debit card accounts every day for false charges.

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