Justin Rybicki doesn’t order pizza often, but pizza often arrives at his home and work.
“Every time I see Pizza 73 commercials it gives me nightmares,” Rybicki said.
In the past six months, hundreds of dollars worth of pizza have been ordered in Rybicki’s name – and he’s not sure why.
It started in November one night as his family was sitting down for dinner.
“All of a sudden the doorbell rings and there’s Pizza 73,” Rybicki said. “None of us in the house had ordered a pizza from them, and they’re bugging us to pay for it.”
At first it seemed like a simple mistake, but when Rybicki checked his email he saw a confirmation order from the restaurant.
He sent the pizza back and decided he would go to the police the next day to report that someone was using his identity and phone number.
Before he arrived at the station, he got a call from Pizza 73 to confirm a pre-order that had been made in his name.
Despite explaining that it wasn’t him, a delivery driver showed up with a hefty order to his workplace the next day.
“He started losing it because he has $150 worth of pizza that I’m not paying for,” Rybicki said. “He left all cranky and swearing at me, being kind of rude to me.”
After one more expensive delivery to his home, and one more confused delivery driver, Rybicki called Pizza 73’s head office to tell them to cancel any orders made under his name.
“Then they stopped and went to Domino’s,” he said.
‘It’s quite frustrating’
Early on, police told Rybicki to change his phone number. He did, but it didn’t help.
Since January, Rybicki has gotten three Domino’s deliveries, with the latest arriving two weeks ago.
None of the calls have cost Rybicki anything, but he’s still angry and upset to see so much food go to waste.
“It’s quite frustrating,” he added. “I don’t know where it goes – I’m hoping the homeless or they sell it by the slice.”
Cpl. Troy Savinkoff, an RCMP officer and former pizza delivery driver, said what’s happening to Rybicki is unusual, but it happens more often than people might think.
“It was a common thing that we used to see where you get a call, it would always be a fairly vast amount of pizzas to a residence, you deliver them and you’re speaking to the homeowner … and they didn’t order it.
“So it is something that from a delivery driver perspective that we did see quite often and back then we didn’t, we didn’t call the police,” Savinkoff said.
While a fake pizza call is not uncommon, Savinkoff said Rybicki’s case has passed the point of prank.
“We’re into more of a mischief, fraud, and now harassment,” he added. “So that continuing behavior is concerning.”
It’s also worrying how the calls are being made.
“These suspects are using some form of technology to manipulate the phone number that’s coming in to appear to be our victim’s phone number,” Savinkoff said.
Rybicki said he’s unsure who could be behind the pizzas. He suspects perhaps a disgruntled former coworker, but he can’t be sure.
“Either someone hates Pizza 73 and Domino’s or they’re getting revenge on me or something. I have no clue,” he said.
Police are investigating the case, and Rybicki said he is trying to protect himself by changing his information and beefing up his computer security.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nav Sangha
