Spate of PaySafe card scams

Five cases of pre-paid credit card scams have been reported this month, leading to the withdrawal of over €6,600, said police spokesperson Christos Andreou.

He urged businesses that sell PaySafe cards to be alert and cautious.

Andreou said that in all cases, the scam was carried out in the same way.

Employees of supermarkets or kiosks that sell pre-paid PaySafe cards received calls, from an overseas phone number, by a man who spoke Greek and introduced himself as the manager of a company that deals with these cards.

After convincing the employees each time, he asked for the 16-digit numbers on the cards.

He would then tell them he would cancel the cards, and in this way, he was getting the money from these cards, Andreou said, noting that the last case concerned 39 cards of €50 each.

PaySafe is a pre-paid credit card that can be used for online purchases.

According to police, the first case concerned 29 €100 cards from a kiosk in Limassol, of which 13 were cancelled while the rest were redeemed.

On August 7, two complaints were made, one in the Morphou area with seven €100 cards and one in the Larnaca district regarding four €100 cards.

On August 8, another complaint was made from a kiosk in Paphos for seven €100 cards.

The last complaint was made on August 10 by a supermarket employee in the Limassol district and concerned 39 €50 PaySafe cards, with a total value of €1,950.

Andreou urged the public, especially the owners of kiosks, supermarkets and other shops where PaySafe cards are sold, to inform their employees that this type of fraud exists.

He said they must be very careful not to issue cards over the phone and, under no circumstances, give details of these cards.

If they notice such an offence or receive similar phone calls, they should immediately inform the police.