Payment Terminal – Fraud Trend
Payment Terminal – Fraud Trend
Moneris has advised of a recent fraud trend targeting businesses. Please see details below so that you and your team can recognize it and know what actions to take.
What is happening
Fraudsters are calling front-line staff and claiming to represent trusted brands, like Moneris. Some of them even claim to be from your own company’s IT department. The caller says they need to “test” your payment terminal and proceeds to walk an employee through processing what is actually a manually entered transaction on one card number and then a corresponding refund transaction to a different card that the fraudster controls.
This results in funds being transferred from your account, and because the original transaction was manually entered at an unverified caller’s direction, your business is left liable for the resulting chargeback.
What you can do
Moneris will never call and ask your staff to process a transaction of any kind to test a device.
If you receive a call like this:
1. Do not process any transaction – never run a purchase, refund or “test” transaction because someone on the phone asked you to.
2. Do not follow any steps relayed by the caller – they may pressure staff, saying it’s urgent to do this transaction test; do not follow any of their requests.
3. Hang up and verify – call Moneris Customer Service at 1-866-319-7450 or the number on your monthly statement, never a number the caller provides.
4. Alert your team – make sure everyone who touches a terminal, including new and part-time staff, knows about this scam.
5. Report it – if a transaction was processed or attempted, contact Moneris right away so we can try to help with the next steps.
A reminder on manual transactions and chargebacks
This scheme works by pushing staff to complete a manually keyed transaction. Manual entry is treated as card-not-present, which means there is no chargeback protection, and liability falls on your business.
For any questions or if you believe you have been targeted, please reach out to Moneris Customer Service at 1-866-319-7450. For more fraud prevention tips, visit the Fraud Prevention section of the Moneris blog at moneris.com.