In a newsletter, NAPHA stated as follows:
It came to our attention that some guests have purchased gifts on the Hosea Kutako Interna-tional Airport on their way back home. Unfortunately they were awaited by rather shocking informa-tion once they have drawn their credit card state-ments back home. What they found were that after they have left Namibia their credit cards has been used to make various pur-chases at different retail companies in town for quite large amounts.
After a meeting with the Chief Inspector of Police who is in charge of these cases, we have been infor-med that there is yet another syndicate opera-ting in our Country and their target are the tourist.
They use a small instru-ment to “clone” the card, which could be achieved by only swiping a card once. This took them less than a minute to do. Thus nor-mally the tourist will purchase something or try to draw money at an ATM, suddenly a person would walk up to him/her and offers to assist, after taking the card to “help”, this person will make small talk with the tourist and one of their group will clone the card, give it back to the first person and the poor tourist would not even notice. This cloned card would then be used to purchase stuff or to draw large amounts of cash from ATM machines.
The above is not a fantasy, for we have proof of the guests’ statements that show us the purchases that have been made after they left the country.
The first case that NAPHA received complaints on, the guest has only used his cards at the Airport at the Duty Free Shop inside the Departure Hall.
Later this also came to our attention from guests who have used their cards at the Big Five Gift shop outside as you enter the Airport.
Please be warned that this could also happen to you, please do not send your card away when you have to purchase or pay for something. Rather take the time and walk with the person who is going to do the transaction. It can save you or your guest a lot of money.
We would not want our Country to lose foreign currency, thus please warn you guests in a way that would have the least harmful effect.
Be sure that the Police’s Fraud Division is still hard at work and co-operating with us. Some of these culprits have been caught, but unfortunately not all.