POS Terminals: small machines give thieves access to big accounts

A restaurant manager is warning other merchants to keep a close eye on their portable payment devices.

Those are the small machines, a little larger than a phone, formally known as Point of Sale Terminals.

The machines are are turning into a hot commodity among thieves and within the past week thieves tried to steal five such machines from Madisons Grill and Restaurant on Mountain St.

Employees at the store managed to catch one thief, but a second person got away.

Anyone possessing the machines and armed with the right technical knowledge can use them to transfer thousands of dollars of money from the owner of a store or restaurant to a card holder.

The manager of Madisons, John Kyriacou, acted as soon as the machines were taken.

"The minute that happened I immediately asked my employees to bring me my cell phone and I called my provider and I asked them to cancel my lines immediately," said Kyriacou.

The thieves were even quicker, and managed to transfer $8,000 from Madison's account to a fake debit card, money that was later withdrawn from an ATM.

"I was on the phone with them and he call the back office, which was Elavon, and they were able to show immediately that they were pulling money off the card," he said.

In this case no customers were robbed, but it is possible for someone to hack the machine and gain access to earlier cards that were used by the same terminal.

One person is facing charges in connection with the theft: 19-year-old Kelly Parsons of Lachine.

Last month CTV Montreal spoke with depanneur owners who had been robbed when people supposedly making purchases instead took advantage of a momentary distraction to reverse charges and transfer money from store owners' accounts to their own debit cards.

At that time Hossain Shirani said he was robbed of $10,000 in two days, and was arguing with Elavon to get a refund.

He said he knew of four other businesses that had fallen victim to the same scam.