Contactless bank cards

[Ian Batten]

On 16 Nov 10, at 1356, ken wrote:

> On 16/11/2010 10:59, Ian Batten wrote:
> 
> > ... people who pay
> > cash (who you need for your fraud to work) are going to
> > have to be prepared to either not have any change, take
> > their change from the pile you keep beside the till...
> 
> Both common in local pubs and cafes. Sometimes the bar staff stack up orders in their head, deliver the drinks, then collect the money afterwards from the customers in turn.

But such places aren't doing much in the way of credit card transactions, so aren't targets for this.  As soon as they are, they tend to get more formal systems.   I noticed in a music venue I was in recently that the staff had tiny barcode readers and there was a barcode next to each item.

> 
> Also you see cusomers leave money on the bar, walk off, and come back later to pick up the change.  And cafes  often have small plates where customers leave small change as tips, so there really is a pile of pennies beside the till. (though not, in England, pubs - isn't culture weird?)

But you'd be pretty surprised if the cashier took money from the tip bowl to give you your change, wouldn't you?
> 
> In more formal sit-down restaurants with waiter service the till is usually out of sight of the customers, so they have no idea what is cashed up.

Doing a fraud that relies on the punters not checking their receipts in a restaurant would be an incredibly high-risk undertaking, as all sorts of people claim their meals against either expenses or tax.  Restaurants are one of the places where people _do_ check receipts, either because they're claiming them or because they're going to divvy it up amongst friends.

> 
> And is probably the reason that the landlady of our local seems to spend hours every day going through the till and the till roll and the stocktake, just in case.
> 

When my wife was the business manager for a branch in Stratford-upon-Avon, a lot of her customers were restaurants and pubs.  She said that she got a crash course in fraud from talking to the proprietors.  The main fraud was far simpler than is being described here: you simply give your friends free food and drinks, or charge them only a notional sum.

ian