Let’s say you’re a criminal who has just purchased a bunch of credit/debit card numbers stolen from one of the data breaches that occur every day. How do you check to see if the numbers you’ve purchased are any good? For ID thieves in Brooklyn, the Domino’s Pizza ordering app provided a quick and easy way to run through those numbers — and get pizza for people.
According to the NY Times, Brooklyn police officers were monitoring various usual suspects’ social media accounts when they noticed the question “Who wants pizza?” and the Domino’s logo repeatedly popping up in folks’ timelines on Facebook.
When they checked with Domino’s HQ, the pizza company acknowledged there had been a spike in sales in the area.
Additionally, some people were not only making way too many pizza orders for one household to eat, but their successful orders were coming after multiple rejected attempts. One user made 2,000 ordering attempts in a single month, according to the police.
Police were able to work with Domino’s to determine which orders were likely placed with stolen card numbers, which came from people all over the country. Some folks noticed that their accounts were being used to order lots of pizza in Brooklyn and had contested the charges.
In November, police rounded up 14 suspects — almost all male teenager — over the course of two days. Some claim that they were guilty of nothing more than receiving a pizza.
“I didn’t order the pizza,” one 17-year-old arrestee tells the Times. “Someone ordered the pizza for me. The address was at my house.”
He claims that a friend offered to send him some free Domino’s, which is hard to say no to. But when he went downstairs to get the pizza from the delivery driver, he was cuffed and arrested.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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