*******
doing a warning post for people after this happened to me a second time
BEWARE OF PEOPLE USING THIS CARD FOR LARGE PURCHASES
Dodgy Australia Post Load & Go cards. ^ That's what they look like. On the back, the usual 'Authorised Signature' panel.
Tonight this guy asks for a carton of winfield blue. When I tell him we have none of blue, he says 'oh just any then'. I notice the card he is clutching in his hand, sort of inside his sleeve too. I think, here we go. I've seen this before!
He goes to swipe his card but it has a chip so I tell him to insert. He does, 'card read failed'. He tries it again, 'card read failed', and I get the prompt about 'damaged chip yes/no'. I hit no like usual and he swipes and without any cheque/savings/credit menu, it goes straight to signature. Of course the signature matches the back, but the name on the front of the card is 'Valued Customer'. Lolll.
I know something's up as I've seen this card before. So I just reject the signature and tell him his card doesn't work, then he goes away.
But the last time I seen this kind of dodgy card was more serious than a carton of winfield blue. And the guy didn't let up at easy.
4-5 weeks ago:
A rough looking guy in a fluoro vest comes to my counter with 4 woolworths gift cards and wants to put $450 on each of them in separate transactions. He's a bit upfront in the way he talks but he relaxes a bit with me and says he's a tradie and the gift cards are for his workers so that they don't blow the money on grog or whatever. (I'm thinking well, this card is not groceries only, you can still use it at the smokeshop...)
I setup the first gift card, and he grabs one of *FOUR* Aus Post Load & Go cards from his pocket. He makes slight small talk when he notices that I've noticed -- "my wallet got run over" he said.
He inserts it, 'card read failed', inserts again, 'card read failed' -- 'chip damaged? yes/no/' on my screen, and he starts to talk me through what to do. lol. the customer. he clearly knows too much about what's going on here to be legit. I ask him what's wrong with his card, and he says "I told you mate my wallet got run over". So I hit 'no' and it goes to signature, he signs and I ask to see the back of the card and he shows me it. The signature matches the back of the card. But it's really suss to me that the Aus Post Prepaid Card does not have a customer name on the front. It just says 'Valued Cardholder'.
I ask the guy if he has his drivers license or something with him so I can confirm. The reason why it's dodgy is because while the signatures match and would likely match his drivers license, the name on the card renders the whole thing meaningless. Anyone could have written on the back of the card and shown their own ID and claim 'ownership' of the card. In fact his signature could even be like a sticker over the top of the real signature. There's no valid proof tying his ID to the card except some handscrawling.
This is where he gets rowdy. "My IDs in my ute three blocks away, and I need to get back to the site as soon as possible I'm on the clock. You really wanna make me go all the way there?' The usual intimidate-the-staff-into-getting-your-way routine.
I just go with it and hit accept. The signature matches the card anyway, I thought. So I load the $450 onto the gift card and provide him the receipts. We're both a bit shakey and he's no more mr nice chatty guy anymore. I setup the next gift card and he does the same routine as before. Pulls out a second Aus Post Prepaid Card and it does the same 'damaged chip' routine. At this point I'm like I've had enough -- this is too weird. I hit decline, and say to him 'Just a moment...' before I walk over to the phone to call down my 2ic.
She takes a little while to get here but when I get back to the register, the guy goes absolutely off his head at me. "Mate, this is absolutely disrespectful. I'm a customer and an adult, if you wanna run over to your supervisor, you tell me first alright?" [i did.] "Second of all I need to get back on site ASAP I don't have time to sit around, you've kept me waiting here, for what, I aint a child,..." blahblahblah
Eventually my 2IC arrives but I didn't get a chance to explain to her what was going on before we were in front of the customer. So naturally the guy does *all* of the talking, complaining about me etc. So I couldn't let my 2IC know discretely that the whole thing was extra dodgy because the guy has 4x identical dodgy Prepaid Load&Go Cards. But she manages to play the guy into using the first one of the cards he used successfully with me for payment of the 2nd gift card. In other words he fucked up his own careful plan. When putting through the transaction, it shows 'Declined 51 contact bank' (low balance). Clearly each of his prepaid cards has $450 on it only, and he wanted to transfer the money onto woolies gift cards. But in trying to hide the 4 cards from my 2IC he uses the card that was still in his hand, which is the one I just used, so it's empty. There's the mistake I was waiting for.
2IC manages to make the guy go away by dismissing him when he touts the same line about 'having to get back on site, my ID is 3 blocks away etc etc' -- she says no transaction without ID. He gets pretty abusive now and demands receipts to show that no money has been inadvertently taken out of his accounts, but noticeably he scurries off with his brand new $450 gift card, the one that did work.
If you think quickly about what was at stake, 4 x $450 gift cards = $1,800 of fraud, going almost completely under the radar if it was successfully transferred to Woolies gift cards.
*****
So anyway TL;DR is
BEWARE of anyone using the above card,
Australia Post Prepaid Load & Go for any large purchases (cigarette cartons, electronics, gift cards, etc.) The card will show 'chip damaged' when used, despite not showing any visible signs of actual damage! It will prompt for a signature, but
you MUST reject it. ID cannot be confirmed because the cards don't actually have any name physically inscribed on them, only a signature panel where anyone can write on it.
Dodgy dodgy dodgy dodgy!!
Anyone seen this before ?!
