This is the view of Paul Kent, managing director of independent credit card swipe machine distributor, SureSwipe.  “We have a zero tolerance approach to fraud,” Kent said, “and in addition to ongoing fraud training for retailers, we do not hesitate to contact the police to investigate any wrong doing we discover.  Last year six people were arrested as a result of our complaints, five were merchants and one was a shopper.

“We pay very careful attention to transactions, we don’t have floor limits but the minute we see something unusual we start tracking it or investigate.  There is a belief that armed robbers hold the greatest threat to shoppers and certainly in terms of the potential for getting shot they are a grave danger, but such robberies are relatively infrequent compared to the amount of fraud that occurs by merchants or their staff.”

Each year the retail industry spends around R1,5-billion a year on security to deter robbers and to combat in-store staff pilferage and fraud.  Silence about the prosecution of criminals who work for retailers and banks have often been highlighted as something that helps encourage criminality.

In 2010, The Consumer Goods Council of SA noted that the number of armed robbery incidents in stores and shopping malls had decreased “substantially to 14 per month since November 2009, when the average number of robberies per month was 25. The number of armed robbery incidents reported by (retailers) decreased by 44% in April (2010) to 14 from 25 in the same month last year (April 2009).”  They said, the financial losses suffered relating to the April robberies in 2010 amounted to R391 993, a significant decrease of 89% when compared to the R3,53m in April of 2009. This would indicate an average of R28 000 loss per robbery in April 2009, the CGCSA said.

High losses from robberies or staff dishonesty cut into the already weakened bottom line of a retail sector hard-hit by the recession.  But too, Kent noted, it was important for retailers to make crime-anxious consumers feel comforted that fraud and crime were being dealt with rapidly and openly.

Kent said they were even cautious about where they install their credit and debit card machines, “if we notice anything that unsettles our technicians we won’t install. In one instance a technician went to install a machine and noticed an individual with around 20 cards in hand and so he refused to install. Nothing is more important than customer safety and protecting the reputation of the vast majority of retailers who run honest and ethical businesses.”

In the incidents a SureSwipe store owner is prosecuting, a Canadian shopper who had a foreign issued credit card (according to the SA Banking Risk Information Centre foreign issued credit cards are responsible for almost a quarter of credit card  fraud in South Africa) – and asked the major seller of oriental carpets to manually process the R25 000 cost of a carpet.  When SureSwipe informed him the card was fraudulent, the police issued a warrant for her arrest.

In another instance a store manager was putting through higher amounts than purchased and pocketing the balance.

Kent said the highest risk for credit card fraud was for internet transactions, “although e-shopping is the fastest growing form of retailing globally, it carries risks for shoppers and sellers. As fast as security is developed to protect consumers and merchants, criminals seemed to find loopholes.”

He said it was important that consumers never let their credit card out of their sight when it is swiped, “don’t get distracted by a chatty and apparently friendly salesperson, watch the card.”  Kent said it was important that people never send credit card details in an email and to be very wary of divulging the three digit security number at the back of a credit card.

“Stores do their best to ensure they employ only honest staff and we assist by giving fraud training, but there will always be a dishonest individual who tests the system.  It is our responsibility as businesspeople and as consumers to be ever vigilant and to allow no exceptions to the rule when it comes to prosecution.”

Source: https://www.sureswipe.co.za/2011/01/5-shopowners-arrested-as-card-company-implements-zero-tolerance-for-fraud-%E2%80%93-january-2011/