Posted on 05/22/2007 11:04:14 AM PDT by JZelle
LOS ANGELES, May 22 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles waitress faces multiple identity theft charges for allegedly stealing customers' credit card numbers.
Jonathan Diamond of the city attorney's office said April DuBoise, who worked at the Hamburger Hamlet restaurant for six weeks, has been charged with nine identity theft and fraud-related counts along with five counts of grand theft, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The Los Angeles city attorney's office said DuBoise took at least six credit card numbers using her position at the restaurant and may have taken as many as 40. The office said $16,300 in unauthorized charges have been linked to DuBoise.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Did they not leave her a good tip?
This is why I check each and every statement online, sometimes pinging twice a month.
I wonder which Hamburger Hamlet. They never say.
Anymore, I either pay with cash, or take my credit card to the cashier to pay. I won’t let my card walk away with someone else.
"That would be something that would look sort of suspicious to me," said Wayne Williams, deputy special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office of the Secret Service.
Nothing gets passed those deputy special agents in charge!
L.A. Times says the West L.A. branch on Sepulveda.
But investigators said DuBoise was essentially a small fry in the operation. They said she pocketed only $200 from the scam.
They say that a key figure in the case, who remains at large, was an unidentified man who provided DuBoise with the device, known as a "wedge," to skim the card numbers.
He promised to give her $10 for each card number she delivered — but vanished, officials said, before paying off his full debt to the waitress.
Investigators said the roughly $16,300 in bogus charges that have been identified showed up on the statements of six of the restaurant's customers. Evidence suggests that 35 to 40 cardholders were victimized, and the total dollar amount of unauthorized charges can only be guessed.
Another article I read stated that 40% of credit card fraud begins with restaurant employees.
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