Manager duped of US$7 000

On the bright diagrams, glasses, a pen and wooden cubes with the word FRAUD. Business concept

Crime Reporter

Cases of fraud continue to rise, while a gang is hunting those who do not insist on always using the digital chips in their bank cards and risk having their cards cloned.

A Bulawayo company manager lost US$7 701 to two women who duped him into believing that they wanted to change US$10 000 in US$100 bills into small US$1 notes, while he wanted to get rid of his small change.

The businessman was approached in Wingrove Road in Thorngrove on Tuesday by the two women and he liked the idea so he gave them around US$8 000 before he was handed 99 x US$1 notes covered by two US$100 notes.

He discovered that he had been duped of US$7 701 and made a report to the police.

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said the police wanted people to verify transactions before they are completed to avoid being duped.

Fraud cases and card cloning have resurfaced in the country, with people losing cash to criminals.

Recently, police warned members of the public to be wary of a syndicate of criminals that was swindling people through card cloning, a crime largely defeated when banks switched over to digital chips, but many still have the back-up of a magnetic strip and some customers use these.

Card cloning involves the production of counterfeit bank debit cards by criminals after fraudulently acquiring bank card information contained in the magnetic strip of the bank debit card, usually through gadgets known as skimmers that can read the strips.

But point of sale machines remain the major source of data and intelligence gathered has pointed out that there is collusion between these cyber criminals and cashiers at shops, liquor outlets and casinos, just to name a few.

If people refused to complete a transaction with a swipe they could not have their card cloned. In 2018 alone, the last year when almost all cards were still the old magnetic strip cards, over 154 cases of card cloning cases were reported to the police.

Notable arrests on card cloning cases have been made and some of the cases have since been finalised at court, while others are still pending.