A Cornwall pharmacy has lost £5,000 in a suspected scam involving chip and pin devices.
Devon and Cornwall Police this week made an appeal for help to identify two men who visited a café in Exmouth earlier this month “in relation to a fraud investigation”.
It said that on July 3, the café detected a £500 refund when it counted its takings at the end of the day, and found that the refund was issued at the same time two men had visited and one was given a chip and pin device to pay.
Read more: ‘Serious public health risk’: Three jailed over £1m Mounjaro theft
Police said similar incidents had been reported at a Redruth pharmacy, where £5,000 was taken, and a Lyme Regis café, where £1,000 was taken “via a card payment machine”.
Devon and Cornwall Police told C+D that the name of the pharmacy is not being disclosed at this stage, but that the incident occurred on July 10 and the money “was obtained via the chip and pin device”.
Police urged small businesses to be “wary of distraction techniques when taking payments” and to report any similar incidents.
Read more: Four sentenced in multimillion-pound illegal medicines bust
And police constable James Norman advised businesses to be “cautious of handing chip and pin devices to customers, to be vigilant and to spread awareness to small businesses of this type of fraud”.
It comes after three men were jailed for more than five years for stealing almost £1m of Mounjaro from a St Albans pharmaceutical site.
And it follows a Scottish pharmacy staying open despite a suspected arson attack damaging its roof and an outside building.
