Advice for businesses after card machine scams

We have received a number of reports of businesses in Bristol have lost significant sums of money due to a scam involving card payment machines.

Since Monday 13 January we have had at least half a dozen incidents where the offenders have gone into businesses pretending to want to buy goods, but when they have been presented with the PDQ card machine have interfered with the payment and defrauded the companies.

Several dental practices and gardening firms have reported incidents to us in recent days and enquiries to try to identify those responsible are ongoing.

We wish to raise awareness of the incidents and provide businesses with the following advice: 

• Keep PDQ machines out of reach, for example locked away in an office when not in use
• Link the PDQ machine to the business computer system to provide additional security
• Set additional pins that only employees can access
• Make sure all staff are aware and check the transaction amounts before confirming
• Keep up-to-date CCTV systems to help ID offenders

We encourage anyone who has experienced any similar incidents to please contact us online or on 101 and quote reference number 5225009877.

If a crime is in progress, always dial 999.