Parents Who Bought Tickets To School Play Fall Victim To Credit Card Fraud

A school theater production for parents turned out to be much more expensive than some Travell School parents bargained for when their credit card numbers were stolen, possibly from a local theater company's website.

Ridgewood detectives are currently investigating six reports of credit card fraud stemming from purchases of tickets to the Feb. 17 "Travell Drama Club: Best of the Best" show made on Porch Light Production's website, according to Detective Chris McDowell.

Porch Light, based in Glen Rock and owned by Ridgewood's Ryan Pifher, runs numerous drama programs at Ridgewood schools. Pifher, reached by phone on Thursday afternoon, said they can't confirm that the reports of fraud are a result of the website, though he's not discounting the possibility.

"We recently have come to find out that it may have been due to our website," he said. Pifher told Patch that Porch Light has only heard from "a couple of parents" at this point and some questions remain.

"We don't know who may have or who may not have been affected," he said. "So we can't say for a fact that some of their online charges are due to our website."

Detectives said the investigation is active and no other information is currently available.

One of the alleged victims said she realized something was amiss after a receipt at an ATM on Feb. 21 indicated that there had been unusual activity on her card. The woman – who wishes to remain anonymous – discovered that more than $900 in purchases were made with her credit card information at Wal-Mart, an electronics store, a flower store, and at Zoosk, an online dating site, she said.

"I was pretty upset and had a nagging feeling of unrest for days," she said.

Then, she said, she got an e-mail from Porch Light Productions about the possible allegations of fraud. "It made me really mad ... because their tone was very non-apologetic and insincere," she said. She said she purchased the $5 tickets online on Feb. 14.

Pifher said that Porch Light was "shocked, saddened and surprised" to hear that parents may have suffered fraud due to a security issue on the Porch Light website, which Pifher said would have had to have been a result of hacking. He said the theater has been working to resolve any possible issues, the first that have ever surfaced in the time they've been processing payments via the web.

"As soon as we heard, the first thing we did was contact our provider because we're very diligent in making sure our security updates are current and when we heard this, we were shocked," he said. "It's something that saddens us because it's certainly not something we want to happen to our clients."