Man Accused Of Scamming DoorDash Drivers Out Of $950K: Stamford Police

STAMFORD, CT — A 21-year-old man is accused of scamming hundreds of DoorDash drivers in excess of $950,000 in an elaborate scheme that stretches as far back as June 2020, according to the Stamford Police Department.

David Smith, 21, was arrested on a warrant out of Stamford in Mount Vernon, N.Y., by the FBI Westchester Safe Streets Task Force on June 5.

Investigator Mike Stempien, who is a part of the SPD's Financial Crimes Unit, said Smith is expected to be extradited on Wednesday back to Stamford where he'll be arraigned in court.

Stamford police were first tipped off to Smith in January of this year when they responded to a domestic dispute between Smith and another party at an apartment on Prospect Street, said Stempien, noting that Smith, who is believed to be from Westchester, had ties to Stamford and stayed in that apartment in some capacity

"During that call, the patrol officers were kind of looking around in the apartment while they were handling it, and they saw tons of stacks of cash, dozens of payment cards, and they found a bunch of SentrySafes, almost briefcase-like safes," Stempien said.

In total, officers pulled around $733,000 in cash from the apartment, Stempien said.

Smith was only charged in connection with the domestic dispute, but officers seized the cash, payment cards, and two fake California IDs.

"We had our work cut out for us to figure out how did this guy amount all of this cash and where did this originate, why was he in possession of over 100 payment cards and what was the activity on these cards," Stempien said.

Search warrants found that the majority of funds coming onto the cards were DoorDash driver payments, Stempien said. Investigators also performed search warrants on a few cell phones that belonged to Smith.

"That's when we finally pieced together what exactly the scheme was he was doing," Stempien said.

Citing an arrest warrant, Stempien said Smith would randomly choose a restaurant primarily in California and start a DoorDash delivery to a nearby address.

Once the food delivery was en route, Smith would contact the driver purporting to be DoorDash support and say there was an issue with the order and that the driver's account was frozen, Stempien said.

"These drivers obviously wanted to cooperate. They wanted to have their accounts unfrozen," Stempien said.

Smith would either send a verification code to the drivers or a phishing website link that appeared to be a DoorDash login in order to gain access to driver accounts, Stempien said.

"Once he's in their account, he would change their deposit information to one of these cards he was in possession of. So rather than [money] being sent to their own bank accounts, they're being sent to these payment cards in possession of David Smith," Stempien said.

Smith would trigger an automatic payment and tell the drivers to wait a few days, "just to give him a couple of days leeway to get away with this and steal their money before they even realized something was up or their paycheck was missing," Stempien added, noting that Smith would then go to an ATM to withdraw cash or make small purchases.

Investigators spoke with multiple DoorDash drivers who all told similar stories, Stempien said. According to bank records, police believe the scheme stretches as far back as June 2020, and went until January 2023.

"Unfortunately there are hundreds of names," Stempien said. "He really wreaked havoc on hundreds of people; these DoorDash drivers who were trying to make a living delivering some food and making some money."

Stempien said investigators are still working with DoorDash on the investigation.

"This was an egregious and appalling crime and we stand ready to support law enforcement to ensure that justice is served," a DoorDash spokesperson said in a statement to Patch.

"We regularly remind Dashers to keep their account information secure and frequently share tips with them on how to avoid these types of attacks. If a Dasher ever receives a request for any of their account details or suspects their account has been compromised in any manner, we urge them to contact DoorDash Support immediately."

Smith is being held on a $2 million bond. He faces charges of first-degree larceny, third-degree identity theft, second-degree forgery, trafficking personal identifying information and first-degree computer crime.