Neighborhood
Watch (NW) Points of Contact,
Below is another credit card scam scenario I received from one of you.
Remember, never give personal information to a complete stranger. It is better
to be safe than be sorry. Please distribute this story to your neighbors. Take
care and Thanks.
Dan
Hancock
U.C.
NW Coordinator
Wednesday a week ago, I
had a phone call from someone saying that he was from some outfit called:
"Express Couriers,"(The name could have been anything) he asked if I was going
to be home because there was a package delivery for me that required a signature
. The caller said that the delivery would arrive at my home in roughly an hour,
and sure enough, about an hour later, a uniformed delivery man turned up with a
beautiful basket of flowers and wine. I was very surprised since it did not
involve any special occasion or holiday, and I certainly didn't expect anything
like it. Intrigued about who had sent me such a gift, I inquired as to who the
sender was. The deliveryman's reply was, he was only delivering the gift
package, but allegedly a card was being sent separately... (the card has never
arrived!) There was also a consignment note with the
gift.
He then went on to
explain that because the gift contained alcohol, there was a $3.50 "delivery/
verification charge," providing proof that he had actually delivered the package
to an adult of legal drinking age, and not just left it on the doorstep where it
could be stolen or taken by anyone, especially a
minor.
This sounded logical and
I offered to pay him cash. He then said that the delivery company required
payment to be by credit or debit card only, so that everything is properly
accounted for, and this would keep help in keeping a legal record of the
transaction. He added couriers not needing to carry a bunch of cash, would make
them less likely targets for robbery.
My husband, who by this
time was standing beside me, pulled his wallet out of his pocket with the
credit/debit card, and 'John,' the "delivery man," asked my husband to swipe his
card on a small mobile card machine. It had a small screen and keypad where
Frank was also asked to enter the card's PIN and security number. A receipt was
printed out and given to us as our copy of the transaction. He then said
everything was in order, and wished us good day.
To our horrible
surprise, between Thursday and the following Monday, $4,000 had been
charged/withdrawn from our credit/debit account at various ATM
machines.
It appeared that somehow
the "mobile credit card machine," which the deliveryman carried now had all the
info necessary to create a "dummy" card with all our card details after my
husband swiped our card and entered the requested PIN and security
number.
Upon finding out
about the illegal transactions on our card, we immediately notified the bank
which issued us a new card, and our credit/debit account was
closed.
We also personally went
to the Police, where it was confirmed that it is definitely a scam because
several households had been similarly hit.
WARNING: Be wary of
accepting any "surprise gift or package," which you neither expected nor
personally ordered, especially if it involves any kind of payment as a condition
of receiving the gift or package. Also, never accept anything if you do not
personally know or there is no proper identification of who the sender
is.
Above all, the only time
you should give out any personal credit/debit card information is when you
yourself initiated the purchase or transaction!
Pass this on, it may
just prevent someone else from being swindled.
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