STAMFORD – Alexis Cleveland, a 29-year-old resident of Sacramento, received an unexpected call during a simple DoorDash delivery. While on her way to pick up a piece of fruit from a local supermarket, she received a text instructing her “not to complete the order.”
The text was followed by a call from someone claiming to be a member of the DoorDash support team. “The guy said he was from DoorDash and told me not to complete the order. He asked me to verify my identity, saying there was a scam involving ‘dashers’ and they needed to confirm I wasn’t involved,” Cleveland recounted.
Unbeknownst to her, the call was part of a sophisticated phishing scam allegedly traced back to 21-year-old David Smith, a Stamford resident recently arrested for stealing nearly $1 million from over 700 DoorDash employees over several years.
During the call, Cleveland was instructed to follow a link to log into her DoorDash account to verify her identity. Afterward, she was told she would be locked out of her account and unable to access her earnings for about four days. Before hanging up, the scammer mentioned a promotional offer for “dashers” that could earn her a $900 bonus for completing a certain number of deliveries.
“I said, ‘Say less, I’m with it,’” Cleveland recalled. However, after hanging up, she realized she forgot the promo’s duration and called DoorDash support for clarification. That’s when she learned she had been scammed.
“The lady I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about,” she said. While on the phone with customer support, Cleveland changed her account login information, preventing the scammer from accessing her funds.
Cleveland was one of many DoorDash drivers targeted in this scam, according to Smith’s arrest affidavit. Stamford police discovered that Smith conducted over 1,750 transactions linked to more than 700 different DoorDash accounts, indicating widespread victimization.
Pavlo Lavrushchak, another DoorDash driver, began working with the company during the COVID-19 pandemic after his mother passed away. However, he fell victim to a similar scam, losing nearly $5,000. Although he eventually received reimbursement after two weeks of back-and-forth with DoorDash, the experience left him shaken. “I’m still very cautious,” Lavrushchak stated.
In the arrest affidavit, police detailed how one DoorDash driver received a call from someone impersonating DoorDash support while making a delivery in the summer of 2022. The caller claimed the order had been paid for with a stolen card and told her to verify her account. After 30 minutes on the phone, the driver was locked out of her account, losing $850.49, though she believed her total losses were around $4,000.
Police have identified at least seven other victims with similar stories, all targeted by someone pretending to be DoorDash security. The scam often involved a call during a delivery, claiming the order was paid for with a stolen card and instructing drivers to share sensitive information to “verify” their accounts.
While some drivers were reimbursed, others reported that DoorDash said there was nothing they could do. A DoorDash spokesperson acknowledged awareness of these phishing scams and stated that they remind drivers to keep their account information secure while providing tips on avoiding such attacks.
Stamford police noted difficulties reaching all victims due to various factors, including generic names making it hard for DoorDash to track reports of the scam. Investigators attempted to contact victims with unique names like Cleveland but encountered challenges, as some individuals were not even aware they had been targeted.
Ultimately, police concluded that identifying every victim of Smith’s alleged scheme would be nearly impossible. Smith faces multiple charges, including first-degree larceny and identity theft, stemming from the scam, which began in June 2020. During the investigation, police seized over $733,000 from Smith’s apartment, estimating that he stole more than $950,000 in total.