Police Investigate Grand Larceny Cases and Other Tarrytown Scams

Fake Con Ed

A caller reported to police on August 15 that he received a call from someone purporting to be a Con Edison representative. The person said the business had not paid their bill and the electricity would be turned off in 15 minutes if they didn't purchase four $500 Money Pak cards. 

The person bought the cards at CVS and gave the numbers off the back of the cards to the caller. After the fact, it was discovered that the bills were up to date and that person was not an employee at Con Edison at all. 

Detectives filed a case for grand larceny as the business was now out $2,000.

Fake Police

A Carrollwood Drive resident reported to police on August 15 that she received a suspicious call from someone soliciting money over the phone for the police. 

She said he got a call from a man who said he was a detective with the Tarrytown Police Department collecting contributions for the Police Benevolent Association. She said that when she questioned the man he hung up. 

The phone number used was a cell phone number that was not in service. 
Incident was noted for the record.

Chase Case

A Carrollwood Drive resident came to headquarters on August 20 to report that Chase bank had advised him he had a possible fraudulent transaction in his account. 

Police filed a grand larceny case for an unknown person accessing his online account and removing $1,800 without his permission. 

Big Money, Bad Card

Detectives are investigating a large attempted larceny at a Main Street business on the afternoon of August 21. 

At Holston Jewelers on 28 Main Street, unknown suspects entered the business and attempted to purchase $8,869.60 worth of merchandise using a credit card scam. 

This follows a similar story, with huge losses, from Star Jewelry on August 9, reporting a bad charge of $11,000 worth of jewelry from the store.

Lt. William Herguth said the scheme was the same as at Star Jewelry, but here at Holston the culprits were turned away without items.

As with Star, Herguth said the purchase was not completed at first as the merchant machine declined the sale. The culprits try to continue with their scam: after the card is declined, they say they will call their bank for authorization. Then they give the merchant a code that lets the sale go through. The code is one used by banks for training purposes only and will not debit the account. The receipt gets printed indicating an offline "sale" with no real funds transferred.