A scammer seems to have found the right vein to scam restaurateurs in the Hérault. Indeed, at least four restaurants in the Sète region explain having received a visit from a man who “presented well” and did not seem to alert about a possible scam attempt.

The technique is simple, first he telephones explaining that he has been debited twice from his bill, for this he does not hesitate to provide false bank transaction documents published by a paid application.

Faced with so much credibility, a restaurateur reimbursed him in cash and was alerted too late by a neighboring shopkeeper herself a victim of the same individual a few days earlier.

Faced with a few refusals, the scammer was able to be threatening, a shopkeeper explains to the Midi Libre newspaper: “He was very excited. […] He lifted his pants to show me his electronic bracelet. He didn’t hesitate to tell me that he was getting out of prison and that he was ready to go back. A few days later, other traders managed to prove the scam. In fact, a baker was asked to reimburse pastries bought on Mondays even though his bakery is never open on that day and he does not sell any pastries.

This is not the first time that restaurateurs have been hit by various scams. Last July, detected for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, the scammers replaced the payment terminals with their own device linked to a foreign account. Each amount could have been stolen and the scam was particularly difficult to detect.