Allen County, Indiana — Kevin Sunthimer, an Allen County resident, was enjoying his Friday morning when he heard the doorbell ring. He opened the door to see a young man carrying a grocery basket full of candy bars.
“I opened it and said, ‘Hello, can I help you?,’ and he turned around and came and started talking about how he was from the University of Purdue,” he told me. “They were doing a special fundraiser for education.”
Sunthimer stated that the first red flag he should have seen was the alleged salesman’s payment methods.
“He actually said that they could accept cash donations, but the chocolate that they were selling could only be purchased via credit card or debit card,” he informed me.
Sunthimer had no idea that the candy bars, which were supposed to cost $10, had been charged to his card for more than $1,000.
“I actually got an alert probably 10 minutes after he left, and it said that there was some suspicious activity on my card for a charge for $1,100, $1,200 from a vendor,” according to him. “I had no idea what it was.”
He was able to retrieve his money after making a quick phone call to the bank.
He immediately posted a screenshot of the footage captured by his doorbell camera to the Nextdoor app. He discovered that others in the area had gone through similar experiences, many with the same man.
“One woman from one of the Next door posts I saw lost some like $1,200 because she thought she was giving to a good cause, and it ended up being just a scam,” according to Sunthimer.
