McScam: Fast Food Customers Fleeced
Australia’s Daily Telegraph reported on October 21 that McDonald’s – the largest fast food chain in the country – will overhaul security on its EFTPOS machines after customers were stripped of $A4 million. Criminals had snatched the devices at McDonald’s outlets across the Western Australian state capital of Perth, a city of more than one million people, and replaced them with bogus card-skimming versions. This allowed them to fleece at least 3,500 customers. If you’re running a retail business make sure you not only have the appropriate security protocols in place but that you’re also in contact with a team of experienced forensic investigators who can ensure that your protective walls are not breached.
Police in Australia have recently warned retailers to be vigilant in maintaining their EFTPOS security systems. A top fraud squad officer in Western Australia has explained that the McDonald’s scam occurred when legitimate EFTPOS PIN pads were replaced by fake ones that transmitted PINs to the criminals. “It doesn’t take much time to switch these pads over,” he said. “Perhaps 15 to 20 seconds. It’s plug in and play.”
The most likely scenario in the scam is that McDonald’s staff were distracted while serving customers, with the bogus devices probably substituted at that time. A police taskforce has been established to specifically target the McDonald’s crime and it has warned retailers across the nation, especially in the largest state of New South Wales, to learn from the Perth experience and keep their terminals under constant and close scrutiny. No arrests have so far been made.
McDonald’s in Australia has said that it will be implementing a number of measures across the country to protect its security systems, but understandably declined to provide any detail. It is believed, however, that the measures will include new technologies that prevent the removal of, or tampering with EFTPOS PIN pads, as well as giving the machines a highly visual presence in each of the chain’s stores.
Spokesmen for the country’s two largest retailers, Woolworths and Coles, have both stated that the firms had no need to change their security protocols on EFTPOS terminals because their machines contained more advanced technology.
The question is, are you technologically up to date in the operation you’re running?
If you have any doubts, call in a team of experts now. They’ll not only advise you on the sort of state-of-the-art equipment you need to install but also put in place or upgrade your overall security system to fit in with it. The last thing you want is thousands of customers angry because their cards have been compromised.
