Restaurant manager sniffs out Alfredo scam

TOM ALEX • talex@dmreg.com • June 19, 2009

A Des Moines restaurant manager sniffed out a scam that saved the family-owned eatery a large financial loss and 200 chicken Alfredo dinners.

Barbara Argenta, manager of QV Cavatelli and More, 209 Euclid Ave., said a man agreed to pay $2,120 for the dinners from her father’s restaurant. The caller wanted to charge $3,120 to a credit card and have Argenta wire back the $1,000 difference.

She said she’d seen a television report about similar scams and was suspect from the start. She played along for about three days, got police involved, and had several conversations with the man via a telephone service.
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The caller typed messages from a computer to a telephone operator who read them to Argenta. Even the operator became suspicious, Argenta said, and told her: “This sounds like a scam.”

The man, who identified himself as Dennis Walter of Minnesota, first contacted the restaurant on June 6. He said he would pick up the dinners, complete with garlic bread, salad and side vegetables, on June 10.

Agenta eventually told the caller, via the operator: “I know what’s going on. I’m not sending you any money.”

Detective Ray Carrington said scammers have started to work through telephone operators to add “one more layer of insulation to keep from being identified.”

“What’s unusual is that these scams are now crossing over into the business sector,” he said.

Targets like Argenta have started to catch on to such scams, even when the perpetrators add new wrinkles from week to week.

Police, meanwhile, say it’s virtually impossible to nab the suspect.

“The guy could have been anywhere,” Carrington said. “We’re still getting as many reports, but people aren’t falling for them nearly as often. I think the word is getting out.”


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090619/NEWS/90619012