A pizzeria owner in Philadelphia says his business was scammed out of $1,200 by someone using a blocked phone number, but when he contacted police for help he was told by detectives that the value of the crime didn’t merit investigation.

The business-owner says he first contacted Verizon to see if they could help him identify the person behind the blocked number, but was told he’d need to file a police report and get a subpoena.

Sounds easy enough. But his calls to the police were not effective.

“A detective said they wouldn’t bother with it, because it was under $2,000,” the pizza guy tells the Philadelphia Daily News.

A second detective told him that the cost of obtaining a subpoena was too high. Verizon says it doesn’t usually charge a fee for honoring a subpoena request for a number search.

Yet another call to the detectives resulted in the runaround, says the scam victim: “[The detective] said he’d checked with four other detectives and they said the same thing: Even if they found the number, there’d be no way to prove that the person made the calls, because maybe someone else used the phone. And then the D.A. wouldn’t bring charges. Basically, he decided the case wasn’t worth following.”

The pizzeria owner says he doesn’t even necessarily want anyone behind bars. He just wants to ID the caller so he can take the person to court to recoup his losses.

The Daily News talked to a detective from a different part of Philly who said the original detectives should have had no problem working with Verizon to get info on the blocked number, but, “He got a lazy detective who didn’t feel like working the case.”

Ronnie Polaneczky: A BAD CALL: Phone-prank victim told $1,200 not worth cops’ time [Philly.com]

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