David Smith, a 22-year old former Stamford, CT man, was murdered in New Rochelle, NY on January 6, two days before he was scheduled to appear in Stamford court. For about a three year period leading up to his arrest in June 2023, he stole about $1 million from 700 DoorDash drivers. This is a picture of the money found in his apartment.
The scam: He would rendomly choose a restaurant (primarily in California) and start a DoorDash delivery. Once the food was enroute, he would contact the DoorDash driver claiming he was DoorDash support saying there was an issue with the order and the account was frozen. He would then send the driver a link to unlock the accoutn, but it was sent to a fake website with verification code. He would then gain access to the driver's account and redirect the drivers money to his payment card.
The buried lead: In the Greenwich Time story, the Stamford police investigator, who was overwhelmed by the number of victims, was quoted as saying: "the system employed by DoorDash made it difficult to track down the drivers. Some of the DoorDash runners worked under false names or stolen identities to circumvent the company's background and security checks."
Between the Lines - Think twice before you trust your DoorDash driver.