Bank card: tips for avoiding the “back-to-back theft” scam

Beware of this growing credit card scam. It is a scam technique revealed by Ouest-France which ensures that 12 complaints were filed between November 2018 and June 2019 in fast food chains of the same chain in Manche, Calvados and Somme. Three men managed to steal money from users using the “back-to-back theft” technique.

A scheme that requires two crooks and is also common at ATMs. In practice, when the customer ordered his meal at a fast food terminal, one of the scammers discreetly withheld his credit card code. His accomplice then steals the card from him by sticking to him behind the purchase terminal or by putting himself “back to back” from the victim, before quickly withdrawing money using the code stolen by the first crook. By the time the person realizes the theft, the scammers have already had time to steal cash from him. This scheme had allowed three crooks from the North of France to steal up to 14,000 euros. The technique has been updated thanks to surveillance cameras. One of the three scammers was also arrested and sentenced in Coutance (Manche) this Wednesday, June 1 to one year in prison under an electronic bracelet and to pay a fine of 1,450 euros.

As 20 Minutes explained in 2020, two men had already been caught in the act in January 2020 at the Euralille shopping center in a Burger King. One of the two crooks had been caught trying to search the pockets of a customer seated with his back to him. This technique is well known to pickpockets and consists of sticking your chair behind that of your potential victim. Placed back to back, the scammer takes the opportunity to search the pockets of his victim’s jacket on the back of the chair in order to steal a wallet or a bank card

Faced with the proliferation of these scams, the gendarmerie calls for users to be vigilant and recommends hiding their code when dialing it at an automatic purchase terminal or when withdrawing money from an ATM. Back-to-back theft has been booming in fast food restaurants since 2018. The scam “is mainly limited to fast food restaurants where thieves can approach their victims at the terminals. In the department, we arrested three or four teams in one year”, already explained to the Parisian in 2019 Karine Lejeune, the gendarmerie colonel of Essonne. “We can limit the risks as much as possible with a little vigilance or by paying without contact, for example. Otherwise, as always, you have to remember to hide your fingers when typing your security code”, recalled the colonel.