CARMEL – Putnam County investigators have not quite figured out how it is being done, but they are looking into the thefts of identities of people in the county. About a half-dozen people in the Brewster and Patterson areas have fallen victim to the scheme.
Sheriff’s investigators said the thieves apparently accessed the victims’; home telephones and email service account information and then used mobile telephone applications to remotely put the victim’s home phones in a call-forwarding mode, diverting calls to the thieves’ mobile phones. The thieves also changed the user names and passwords on the victims’ email accounts.
Once the calls and emails were diverted, the thieves assumed the victims’ identities and ordered replacement credit cards in their names to be sent to several different addresses in Brooklyn. When the card-issuing banks tried to telephone or email their customers to verify the card requests, the thieves intercepted the calls and emails and gave the required verifications.
The fraudulently obtained credit cards were then used to make purchases at several stores in Brooklyn and an attempted purchase at a Manhattan store.
Several of the victims had reported the credit card thefts but were unaware that problems they were experiencing with their phone and email services were related.
Anyone who suspects they may have been victimized should call the sheriff’s office at 845-225-4300 or their local police department.
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