Beware of Verifone SCAM

Posted in Customer Support, Industry News.

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Beware of Verifone SCAM

Dharma has been made aware of a scam that is relevant to our recent EMV Process posting. Dharma has been notified by one of the largest manufacturers of POS equipment ­– Verifone – that scammers posing as Verifone Help Desk agents are calling merchants to “test their payment terminals with phone cards.”

Here’s how the scam works:

Merchants receive a telephone call from someone posing as a Verifone Help Desk associate stating that they need to test the payment terminal with a phone card. Beware of Verifone scam! The fraudster asks the cashier to authorize several phone cards by providing the Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) located on the card for verification. The merchant is left responsible for any expenses associated with purchases that are then made with the stolen cards/PINs.

It is important that you know that the Verifone Help Desk:    

  • Never requests PIN information over the telephone.
  • Never insists that merchants “authorize” a phone card

Help protect your organization by following these simple steps:

  • Be suspicious of “urgent” communications asking you to confirm or provide personal or financial information over the telephone (or email).
  • Always verify unsolicited callers. If a caller asks you to disclose information, make payments, process transactions or make changes to systems or terminals, be sure to ask the caller to identify the company they represent and details of their office telephone number. Or, use the internet to verify the number and other information they provide.