Criminals are taking advantage of the general publics quest for the feel good moment because they “helped” some one in “need”.
Many people are quick to give up some money to strangers, people they have never met, and why? A common answer is “Because I would expect someone to help me in the same situation”. However there are also people that say they wouldn’t people because people need to learn to be more independent and take more personal responsibility and saying they wouldn’t expect a stranger to just hand them money.
What ever the case may be for you is your choice and the Richmond RCMP just want to warn the public of a few fraudsters in the area running a debit card fraud scam.
There is two people involved in the scam approaching people in busy parking areas
- The fake taxi is described as a white Toyota Camry with a white taxi sign on top.
- The fake taxi driver is described as a Fijian or South Asian man in his early 20’s.
- The fake passenger is described as a Middle Eastern man also in his early 20’s.
Richmond RCMP is warning the public since April 22nd they have received multiple reports of a debit card fraud scam involving a fake taxi, a fake driver, and a fake passenger.
The way the fraud is playing out is a young man approaches people in busy parking area claiming he doesn’t have enough money to pay for his taxi ride. If the unsuspecting victim agrees to help the fake passenger, the fake taxi driver says he doesn’t accept cash “because of Covid” and doesn’t accept credit card.
The fake taxi driver wants your debit card though. The fake taxi driver pulls out the debit machine and hands it to the unsuspecting victim and claims the tap feature for the machine isn’t working so they will need to insert the card and punch in their PIN code.
After the “payment” is completed the fake taxi drive swaps the card with a fake when when handing it back to the victims. The unsuspecting victim later finds several fraudulent transactions on their debit card, most involving several hundreds of dollars.
Corporal Ian Henderson of the Richmond RCMP says this scam appears to be new for the City of Richmond, but they have already receive multiple calls in the past few days to report the incident.
According to a Richmond RCMP news release Frontline and Economic Crime Unit investigators have taken over the investigation and working to identify and locate the suspects. The Richmond police say they believe there is a need to warn the public of this fraudulent activity.
