New Holiday Scam

BE ON THE ALERT, THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS COMING NEW SCAM

Just when you think you've heard it all. Here comes another scam. This 
scam is very clever. Be very careful out there! One could easily fall for 
this - beware of people bearing gifts!

There is a new and clever credit card scam. Please circulate this. 
Someone it happened to says it works like this:

Wednesday a week ago, I had a phone call from someone who said that he was 
from some outfit called: "Express Couriers" asking if I was going to be 
home because there was a package for me, and the caller said that the 
delivery would arrive at my home in roughly an hour. And sure enough, 
about an hour later, a uniformed delivery man turned up with a beautiful 
basket of flowers and wine. I was very surprised since it did not involve 
any special occasion or holiday, and I certainly didn't expect anything 
like it. Intrigued about who would send me such a gift, I inquired as to 
who the sender is. The delivery man's reply was, he was only delivering 
the gift package, but allegedly a card was being sent separately; (the 
card has never arrived!). There was also a consignment note with the gift.

He then went on to explain that because the gift contained alcohol, there 
was a $3.50 "delivery charge" as proof that he had actually delivered the 
package to an adult, and not just left it on the doorstep where it could 
be stolen or taken by anyone.

This sounded logical and I offered to pay him cash. He then said that the 
company required the payment to be by credit or debit card only so that 
everything is properly accounted for.

My husband, who by this time was standing beside me, pulled his wallet out 
of his pocket with the credit/debit card, and 'John', the "delivery man", 
asked my husband to swipe the card on the small mobile card machine which 
had a small screen and keypad where Frank was also asked to enter the 
card's PIN and security number. A receipt was printed out and given to us.

To our horrible surprise, between Thursday and the following Monday, 
$4,000 had been charged/withdrawn from our credit/debit account at various 
ATM machines.

It appeared that somehow the "mobile credit card machine" which the 
delivery man carried now had all the info necessary to create a "dummy" 
card with all our card details after my husband swiped our card and 
entered the requested PIN and security number.

Upon finding out about the illegal transactions on our card, we 
immediately notified the bank which issued us the card, and our 
credit/debit account was closed.

We also personally went to the Police, where it was confirmed that it is 
definitely a scam because several households had been similarly hit.

WARNING: Be wary of accepting any "surprise gift or package", which you 
neither expected nor personally ordered, especially if it involves any 
kind of payment as a condition of receiving the gift or package. Also, 
never accept anything if you do not personally know or there is no proper 
identification of who the sender is.

Above all, the only time you should give out any personal credit/debit 
card information is when you yourself initiated the purchase or transaction!

If you pass this on, it may just prevent someone else from being swindled!