Mary is a Kenyan woman who moved to the US after high school to further her studies. She is an engineer by profession, and besides that, she has worked as a teacher in Texas and spent a year in South Korea furthering her engineering studies. So how did this otherwise lucid, intelligent woman end up losing $300 while on holiday in Mombasa?

This is our first story in our new weekly series: The Scam, which features real stories of people who have been victims of scam schemes across the country.

While on holiday in Mombasa, Mary visited a five star hotel located along New Malindi Road and after a couple of drinks her bill was brought. She realized she didn’t have enough cash and decided to settle the bill using one of her VISA debit cards.

Her waiter informed her that he had to take the debit card to the hotel reception desk for processing. Based on the hotel’s good reputation and frequent visits by foreigners, Mary entrusted her card to the hotel employee, an innocent act that cost her 300 dollars.

The waiter took close to an hour to process her card, claiming that their systems were down. In real sense, they were actually obtaining her bank account information, as she was to discover later.

Like many card users, Mary rarely tracked her transactions. A month later, while using her VISA debit card in Nairobi, Mary realized that her card had been blocked and after a quick on-line check she learned that there were some unaccountable 300-dollars payments that had been made to her account. Using her contacts back in the States she was able to investigate the unaccountable transactions and it was revealed that indeed her account information had been stolen and that the transactions amounting to 300 dollars had been done during the same period she was at the five star hotel in Mombasa.

Plastic money has revolutionized our banking transactions, reducing risks associated with handling cash. Over the recent past, there have been campaigns in the media encouraging people to use their VISA cards. While the number of credit or debit card users increasing, criminals working in reputable business premises that accept debit or credit cards have devised ways of accessing our bank account information and subsequently robbing us of our hard earned cash.

Be cautious. Mary's mistake was entrusting her card to a total stranger. A quick contact between your debit or credit card to a card skimming devise will give criminals access to your bank information.

Click here to read about ATM card skimming devices.

Don’t release your credit or debit card to anyone and always be present when your card is being ‘swiped’, failure to which you could fall prey to one of these fraudulent schemes. Secondly, monitor your bank account transactions on a regular basis, you never know, you might already have fallen victim of one of these schemes and could be  paying for transactions you have nothing to do with.

Be your brother's keeper and share, like or post this article on your social media pages to inform others of such schemes.