DOTHAN, Ala. — According to Dothan Police Department, about 5 cases of credit card fraud are reported per day in the city.
Recently, this number may have increased due to a local restaurant worker allegedly stealing people’s credit card information.
“They would take the card from customers, generally from the drive through window, and they were using their personal cell phones to take pictures of the front and back of those cards,” Sgt. Tim Mullis said.
But thanks to quick action by the business and Dothan police, the situation is currently under control.
“The business was actually quite diligent and they observed suspicious activity,” Mullis said. “They did a very good job of getting this to be a much bigger problem than it could have been.”
That isn’t the only way credit card numbers are getting stolen in Dothan; phone scams are becoming more and more prevalent.
“One we see a lot of in this area is a person will call saying they are with the social security administration, and they will usually say something along the lines of your SSN has been involved in some type of crime,” Mullins said.
If you’re not sure that who you are talking to on the phone really is who they say they are, there’s a few things you need to know before handing out your credit card information.
“No law enforcement agency will ever call you and ask for you SSN over the phone,” Mullis said. “A law enforcement agency will most likely already have that number. The second part of this is no law enforcement agency will ask you to pay a fine over the phone. The only reason we would need you cc info, is if it was already compromised or was part of a report.”
Three people have been recently arrested and charged with identity theft, and a warrant has been issued for a fourth person, but they have yet to be picked up.
