VIDEO. Toulouse: a retiree defrauded at home using a small SumUp payment terminal
A Toulouse retiree, made vulnerable by a stroke, was cheated out of more than 3000 euros by a fake delivery man. The scammer used a SumUp payment terminal to achieve his ends. The high-tech company defends its security system and the role of banking establishments in controlling this type of transaction.
michael
don’t get over it. This inhabitant of the north of Toulouse still feels guilty for having been scammed in this way. “Everything happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to react. I wake up every night to rehash what happened. I’m a little ashamed but I had to talk to avoid other people get screwed like me.”
The retiree was rolled in flour by a fake delivery man. The facts date back to February 17 in the early afternoon. “An individual came to ring at my gate. He was about thirty, dull complexion, graying hair, quite tall, rather slender. He had a package on him. He told me that it was a gift and that he had to reimburse me 80 euros on a recent purchase. As he presented well and seemed very professional, I let him in”, sighs the octogenarian.
The retiree, confident, first gives him his phone number. He almost instantly receives the following SMS: “reimbursement 80 euros code 1521”. “As my wife was away, I thought she was the one who made this purchase,” says Michel. The false delivery man asks him to insert his bank card into a “Sum-Up” box. “It was a very small box that you often see in the markets. He wandered around the living room saying that he needed wifi. I had to redo my code three times. He told me that it doesn’t pass. He left me a voucher for 80 euros and left without asking for his rest.”
Lightning rate
After a few minutes of reflection, Michel tells himself that something has chosen to be wrong in this whole circus. He immediately opposes his credit card. He inquires with his bank to check whether fraudulent transactions have been carried out on his account. It’s the cold shower. In a flash, he was withdrawn, in three transactions, the tidy sum of 3080 euros. “It destroyed him. He only dared to talk to me about it at the start of the evening, he was so touched. This thief clearly took advantage of his vulnerability”, explains his wife.
Michel has just turned 82. He worked as an air traffic controller for a good part of his working life before ending his professional career as a teacher at Enac (national school of civil aviation). In 2011, this retiree who lives in a district in the north of Toulouse had a stroke.
“He was seriously affected, his arteries were almost completely clogged. Although he retained all his motor skills, he lost some of his cognitive abilities. He lost concentration and a tendency to trust everyone”, relate his company. The couple went to their bank with the receipt of the complaint filed at the police station. Retirees hope that the banking establishment will at least reimburse some of the fraudulent transactions.
The name has been changed
Easy to use and inexpensive, SumUp is taken by small traders.
To summarize
“Without this damn box, I would surely not have been had,” protested Michel. While he admits having shown some negligence in trusting this fake delivery person, he considers that the SumUp payment terminal is so small that it can mislead customers. “I did not see the sums debited on the screen at all. And then I do not understand why in this case, there is no payment security by SMS”, estimates the former air traffic controller. This payment system is taken by small merchants because it is easy to use, without commitment and with limited costs. But is it still reliable?
SumUp’s response: “We comply with the requirements of the Know Your Customer process. We rigorously verify the identity of each customer. We identify the registered name and address of merchants and business owners. company, details of their activity, company ownership and intended purpose of using our services and tools.If we receive a report of fraud, the customer profile is temporarily suspended and an internal investigation is immediately initiated All the information is passed on to the police.”The high-tech company carries out daily transaction monitoring in order to identify and prevent fraudulent and high-risk transaction processes, but recalls that “concerning the verification of the ‘identity of the cardholder, the sending of an SMS for verification of the amounts recorded by the authority of the bank’ and that the precise amount of the transactions is clearly displayed on all models of se s payment terminals.