Police search for two men after woman in North York defrauded in pizza delivery scam

The Toronto Police Services emblem is photographed during a press conference at TPS headquarters, in Toronto on Tuesday, May 17, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

Toronto police are warning the public about a scam involving a fake pizza delivery driver after a woman in North York had her debit card swapped with another card.

Police said the incident happened in the area of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue East, where a woman was approached last Friday by two men driving a purple Honda SUV.

One of the men exited the vehicle and allegedly told the woman that the other man was a pizza delivery person he was trying to pay but would not accept cash.

Police said the man then asked the woman to pay for the driver using her debit card, and in return, he would compensate her with $20 in cash, which he showed her.

The woman agreed, and police said she later discovered that her debit card had been switched with another card.

The two suspects are described as 20 to 25 years old. The driver had a beard, while the other man is believed to be white, five-foot-four, with curly light brown hair and wearing a black jacket.

Police said they had received reports of similar incidents in the area in the last few days.

In a separate incident in Mississauga, a woman was defrauded $2,400 by a man posing as a pizza delivery driver.

The woman told CP24.com last week that she was parked in front of her house when a man knocked on her window and explained that he had ordered pizza but couldn’t pay for it since the delivery driver didn’t accept cash.

She agreed to help the man using her debit card in exchange for cash.

The woman later learned that her card had been swapped and she had been scammed. Before the bank could lock her account, the suspects had already withdrawn $2,400 from her account.

“There is only one way to protect yourself from these types of scams: never let anyone but you tap, swipe, or insert your card into a machine,” Peel police said.

- with files from CP24's Chris Fox