Hundreds of cases of identity theft have hit the Tehachapi area, and police say they are working on some good leads. But local residents are frustrated by the number of accounts that have been compromised, and they want to know how and where their debit card information is being stolen.

"At the end of February, I went to my bank account to look at the account number and my bank balance," Daniela Peregrina told Eyewitness News. "I noticed there were transactions that were $700 that I hadn't made." Peregrina said she got that sorted out with her bank, and then the family's other bank account was also hit. That time about $500 worth of fraudulent charges showed up.

Then, three weeks ago Peregrina's sister's account was also hit. As a victim, Peregrina started asking questions about how the debit card information was stolen. "It's all pointing to possibly reading of our credit card strips," she said.

At the Bear Valley Springs Police Department, Sgt. Dave Watts said the information could be compromised in several ways. "It could be a card reader -- scanner -- inside a store, it could be a gas pump, and it could be on your computer when you're entering the information through the Internet."

Watts said between his department and Tehachapi Police, they're working on about 200 cases. The officer said some of the fraudulent purchases are being made in the Los Angeles area, Midwest, and some even in Europe.

That's what happened to Peregrina. She said in the first case, items purchases on her debit card were directed to Wyoming. There were charges for things like a computer and Internet communication. The second time it happened, the criminals put charges for Yahoo photos and a cell phone on her account. They tried to charge some travel expenses, but those were denied. Some of those charges were attempted in Europe.

Sgt. Watts says officers are working to find out where the information was stolen, and they haven't pinpointed that yet. "This current wave, we have some strong leads that indicate there could be some local involvement," he said on Thursday.

"If we did succinctly and specifically know that there was a place where people shouldn't go -- that they would be victims -- we'll tell the public stay away from that until it's fixed. But right now, there's no store, gas station, any point of sale where we could say, stay away."

Peregrina said her banks refunded the money from the fraudulent charges, but the biggest inconvenience was going door-to-door to local merchants explaining she had been a victim of ID theft, to get the check overdraft charges waived.

Sgt. Watts said ID theft is a growing crime, and they see a lot of it. But, this recent rash is unusual.

"This cluster is unique because it's hitting this area very strongly. That's the down side to it. The up side of it is if they keep doing it, they're going to be caught."