Credit Card Fraud Tracked To West Lafayette McDonald’s Drive-Thru Worker
WEST LAFAYETTE — A woman’s love of her morning coffee opened her up to identity theft. But it also helped put a stop to a card skimming operation.
At the McDonald’s restaurant off Sagamore Parkway in West Lafayette, police say a store employee stole customers debit and credit card information.
Mekeisha Roberts and Damien Dewan Smith were arrested. Roberts is charged with running customers’ cards through a skimming device, stealing their account information as she worked at the drive-thru window.
Roberts and Smith were then caught on store surveillance allegedly making illegal store purchases using the stolen accounts.
“Every day I would go through the drive-thru and I was right there and I never noticed anything,” said Shannon VanHoosier, a victim of the identity theft.
VanHoosier regularly gets her morning coffee at the restaurant and often saw the woman now suspected of raiding her account.
“Then to think you would be seeing her in a mugshot. Shocked,” she said.
It all started when VanHoosier started getting fraud warnings from her bank.
She did everything right. She signed up for online alerts of fraudulent transactions. Her bank issued her two new cards because of the fraud. She just didn’t know where it was coming from.
“The next morning, I went to the drive-thru and my debit card was declined,” she said.
So she set up her account so every time there was a transaction, she’d get an email.
“I was sitting at work and all these emails started flying. All these transactions I knew I hadn’t done, so I logged on and my account was zero and then it went negative,” VanHoosier said.
Shannon figures she lost $1,600. There are at least 10 victims.
Police were able to track the fraudulent purchases back to that very drive-thru window.
Shannon now has a new plan for her morning coffee — and advice for others.
“Definitely use cash. When I go through a drive-thru now, I do not use a card,” she said.
Police say if you’ve used that drive-thru anytime in the last few months, double check your bank statements to make sure there are no unauthorized transactions.
Source: WTHR