The police warns of a newly discovered method of extorting money, more precisely – plastic money. This threat concerns, in particular, the owners of service points and shops which are using payment terminals.

The scam is relatively straightforward, however in order to be successful, it does require that the fraudsters acquire several essential pieces of information. To that end the shop owner is contacted by a person who claims to be a representative of the company which has been providing the non-cash payment service. The “consultant” explains that an automatic terminal update has failed, and – for the device to work properly – a manual update is required. Then the scammer instructs the unsuspecting victim how to “properly modify” the device settings.

During the "manual update", the fraudster skilfully manipulates the victim to divulge the security codes, which he or she can later use to authorise a non-cash transaction of up to two thousand zlotys. As is usual in such cases, after obtaining the codes (and extorting the money), further contact with the "consultant" is no longer possible.

The police has issued plea for caution and encourages the shop owners to report any calls like this to the authorities.