Dear Bulletin,
Me and my wife have recently come back from Mallorca on holiday to the UK which is our native country. We went on Holiday from the 14th to the 20th of this month and had a lovely time.
During our stay we went to restaurants and we enjoyed delicious food and had amazing service. The locals were extremely friendly and the shops stocked everything we needed to get through our holiday.
Unfortunately, on the last day we got a taxi from a taxi rank near our hotel (in Palmanova). We got in the taxi and although the lady driver who picked us up seemed friendly, they was something off - she also seemed nervous. However we thought nothing of it and asked her to take us to the airport.
After a short drive there she dropped us off out the front.
She then asked for payment of €19.57, and so I went to pay on my Revolut card, but as the transaction was going through I noticed that she pulled the terminal away quickly without letting it properly register... As a result the transaction was declined. So we decided to try again on my wife’s Revolut card and the same thing happened again, so my wife tried again but it still was declined. My wife then tried on her Lloyds Bank card, but she pulled the terminal away quickly again and it declined again. The final time I decided to pay with my Nationwide card, this time however I grabbed the terminal which stopped her pulling it away so fast... Surprise, surprise - it went through.
The lady driver, said “I don’t know why it was doing that, it’s been running perfectly all morning!”
We then got out the cab and thanked her (not knowing that we had been scammed at the time) and made our way into the airport. After getting something to eat in the airport and some water - we noticed that the supposed failed transactions were pending on our respective bank accounts. Meaning that the driver had taken around €60 off my wife and €20 euros off myself (not including the amount paid for the single journey to the airport).
Inside the airport there was a Aena helpdesk, and as the transactions had their logo - we assumed that the lady behind the desk would be able to help us. We explained our situation and the lady didn’t seem to understand our situation and said something like ‘is this a taxi you have booked from the airport”.
I replied no it’s a taxi that we booked to the airport.
She then told us that there was nothing she could do. Disappointed we walked away thinking, maybe the transactions will cancel themselves.
As the transactions were pending, our banks would not issue a refund as it said that if the merchant marks these as unknown transactions, then they will be cancelled and refunded within 48hrs.
Today 22/10/23 we can confirm that we are at a combined loss of around €80. We can only assume that she had a card skimmer under the terminal or something like that, allowing her to process the transactions whilst she pulled the correct terminal away.
As you can imagine, me and my wife very upset by this. Neither one of us are rich, and just the principle itself of someone out there conning holiday makers on there way home sickens me. If she is doing this several times a day, she could potentially be making over a €1000 euros a day defrauding tourists. There is the possibility that this is part of a much larger money laundering scheme as well, although this is just speculation.
Attached is a screenshot of one of the transactions on Revolut. We have the taxi number, although this maybe made up.
The Taxi itself had the markings of a normal Mallorca taxi and a taxi box on top of the cab.
Please could you raise awareness and recommend to tourists to pay in cash only to prevent fraud.
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Scales