RM150,000 ‘kerching!’ moments that never came

IPOH: A shop owner here has sworn off accepting card payments after claiming that he lost nearly RM150,000 due to the failure of several transactions made via Point of Sale (PoS) devices at his premises.

Yong Jun Heung said a group of foreign customers came to his shop on June 21, 2018.

“They purchased several health and wellness products worth RM31,621. The transaction was made using PoS handled by a third party company.

“A few days later, I contacted the company regarding the payment and they told me that it is being withheld until further notice.

“It has been months since the report was made and I have not received any update regarding the status of the payment.

“However, I was told by one of the company representatives that I would not be getting the money back,” he told reporters yesterday.

Yong was accompanied by Perak MCA Public Service and Complaints Bureau chief Low Gua Nan during the press conference.

Yong said two other payments worth RM112,996.90 using different PoS machines were withheld again in December 2018.

“We used new PoS machines after the first report was made. In fact, we have a few other PoS machines to accommodate customers.

“On Dec 11, 2018, two transactions were made by different customers using the same PoS machine. The next day, I went to the bank and found that the payment was withheld.

“I did an online check on my account on Dec 18. The money was not in,” said Yong, who lodged a second report on Jan 22.

He said he also failed to receive two payments worth RM5,397 on Dec 15 and another RM5,343.00 on Dec 16 paid by his customers using the same PoS devices.

“I am no longer accepting card payments to prevent this from happening to me again,” said Yong.

Low said all the devices were in the possession of the companies, not with the police.

“We wonder why the police did not confiscate these devices for further investigation,” he said, adding he hoped that the authorities would take the issue seriously.

“As a merchant, Yong can only know if the transaction is successful or not. But he cannot trace or see if the cards used by the customers are fake.

“Bank Negara needs to have a mechanism to help merchants against fake credit cards,” he said.