No vacation for crooks.
While scams at the electronic payment terminal (TPE) had been observed in several restaurants in Cannes during the festival, other cases were recently notified in the Pyrénées-Orientales, reports France 3.
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All it takes is one minute of inattention and you're done.
The strategy is simple: it is a question of inverting the TPE of the restaurant with identical machines but whose connected account is not that of the establishment but that of crooks.
In other words, each time a customer pays his bill, the money is not routed to the restaurateur's account: it falls directly into the pocket of the criminal.
Call for vigilance
Several days can thus pass without the restaurateur noticing the trickery: "
some only check their cash register once a week
", deplores France 3 Brice Sannac, president of the Union of trades and hotel industries (Umih) in Pyrénées-Orientales.
"
Once the professional notices the scam and wants to file a complaint, the account on which the money was paid is already closed and the thugs have vanished
," he continues.
Faced with this new wave of scams, the Pyrénées-Orientales gendarmerie called on restaurant owners this Saturday, July 13 to remain particularly vigilant, advising in particular in a Facebook post to personalize payment terminals with a small sticker "
or any type of brand in order to allow servers to ensure their security
".
Another technique to guard against this kind of scam: systematically check the tickets issued by the TPE, in order to "
ensure that the name or description of your establishment is always indicated there, proof that your TPE has not been exchanged
”, already indicated two months ago, in a Facebook post, the Cannes Umih.