A Queen’s student is warning others to be cautious after witnessing what he believes was a food-delivery scam outside the ARC.
In a statement to The Journal, Evan Romachyk, Sci ’28, said a friend was approached outside the ARC by a woman claiming she needed help paying for a food-delivery order because her card wasn’t working.
According to Romachyk, the woman asked his friend to use his bank card to pay an apparent delivery driver. His friend inserted his card into the machine and entered his PIN.
Romachyk said he became suspicious after noticing the woman and driver remained in the area after his friend left.
“The driver and the [woman] drove off together, so I was like, ‘that’s really weird,’” Romachyk said.
He said he watched another person approach the pair and use the payment terminal before the woman and driver left together in the same vehicle.
“I immediately called my friend and told him to block the card because it is most definitely a scam,” he said.
The incident resembles a scam Kingston Police warned residents about in a statement on Sept. 10 after several recent reports across the Kingston area.
Police said the scam involves two people working together, with one posing as a food-delivery customer and the other as a delivery driver. The customer tells a victim their payment card isn’t working and asks the victim to pay for the food using the driver’s payment terminal.
During the transaction, police said the victim’s bank card is switched for another card. After the victim enters the PIN, the scammers have access to both the stolen card and its PIN.
Romachyk described a similar method.
“They’ll swap your card for another card, and he’ll hand it back to you so quick you won’t even notice,” Romachyk said.
His friend blocked his card shortly after the encounter, Romachyk said.
A comparable scam was taking place on campus in March, where scammers would tell unsuspecting victims that a taxi driver will not take cash as payment for a ride they just took, requesting that the victim pay for it with their card in exchange for the cash. The scammers would take the victims credit card information when making the payment or swap the card out with a similar looking one.
READ MORE: Police warn of taxi scam taking place on campus
Kingston Police listed several warning signs associated with the scam, including vehicles without identifiable food-delivery markings, requests to enter a PIN, and requests to use a bank card in exchange for cash.
Anyone who believes their card has been switched or compromised should immediately contact their financial institution, cancel the card, consider changing their PIN, and monitor their account, according to police.
Those who believe they’ve been affected by the scam can also report the incident to Kingston Police.
Tags
card information, Social media, uber eats scam
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