Contactless Bank Card Users Warned About Scam

If you use your bank card to make contactless payments, this may be of interest. Spotted on The Telegraph, Paul Jarvis highlighted a scam where a public transport passenger used a Point Of Sale (POS) device to steal money from people. As pointed out by Paul in a Facebook post, the thief used the credit card machine to put in wireless payments of £30 and then touched it off people's wallets while travelling. The post reads in full: "So this guy was spotted wandering round with a Point of Sale (POS) device. All he has to do is key in a price less than £30 and then touch the device on the pocket that contains your wallet. "Ching! You've just been charged automatically on your touch pay enabled credit/debit card.... We just tried this in my local pub with their POS device and it worked... "(I've actually shown people this using the NFC function on my mobile to read their card data through their wallet to freak them out but this is the first time I've seen someone doing it for real). Time to invest in a screened wallet I guess..." The photo was originally taken in Russia but has been circulated in recent days as a result of Paul's Facebook post. Visa has taken steps to reassure customers issuing the below statement: "Since the introduction of contactless payments a number of years ago, card fraud has remained at historic low levels. The vulnerabilities claimed in this post would in reality be extremely difficult to undertake – not least because the fraudster would need to be very close to the cardholder and behave in a way likely to arouse suspicion. Additionally, there are multiple layers of security in place to block suspicious transactions so the potential reward for undertaking such a risky fraud would be low. If a consumer is a victim of fraud, they should contact their issuing bank immediately. Consumers who have been defrauded on their contactless cards receive the same level of protection from their bank as they would with any other Visa transaction".