Five cases of prepaid credit card scams in a week

A total of five cases have been reported between 4 and 10 August about scams that led to withdrawals of thousands of euros through prepaid credit cards, Police spokesperson Christos Andreou told CNA, calling on businesses that sell such cards to be alert and cautious.

Andreou said that in all cases, the scam was carried out in the same way, whereby employees of supermarkets or kiosks that sell prepaid “PaySafe” cards, received calls, from a phone number from abroad, by a man who spoke Greek and introduced himself as the manager of a company that deals with these cards.

After convincing the employees each time, he would ask for the 16-digit numbers on the cards. He would then tell them that he would cancel the cards, and in this way, he was getting the money from these cards, Andreou said, noting that the last case concerned 39 cards of €50 each.

He explained that “PaySafe” is a pre-paid credit card that can be used for online purchases.

According to the information published by the Police, the first such case concerned 29 €100 cards from a kiosk in Limassol, of which 13 were canceled while the rest were redeemed.

On 7 August, two complaints were made, one in the Morphou area with seven €100 cards and one in the Larnaca district regarding four €100 cards.

On 8 August, another complaint was made from a kiosk in Paphos for seven €100 cards.

The last complaint was made on August 10 by a supermarket employee in the Limassol district, and concerned 39 €50 PaySafe cards, with a total value of €1,950.

Andreou urged members of the public and especially the owners of kiosks, supermarkets and other shops where PaySafe cards are sold, to inform their employees that this type of fraud exists, noting that they must be very careful, not issue cards over the phone, and under no circumstances, give details in relation to these cards.

In the case they notice such an offence or receive similar phone calls, they should immediately inform the Police, he said.