POLICE are warning businesses to be on the look-out after a couple attempted to buy £100s worth of gift tokens with a bright yellow payment card.

A man and a woman attempted to buy a £100 B&Q gift token and a ‘Hello Kitty’ bag from W H Smiths in King Street at 2.45pm on Wednesday, April 2.

The couple attempted to pay for the items with a debit card however it was declined.

Then while the man and the cashier were on the phone to the bank the woman appeared to produce a yellow bank card similar to a debit or credit card.

The cashier then told the pair they would have to pay for the gift token with cash.

They chose not to buy the token but purchased the bag and left the shop.

The shop had been told that other scams had been carried out across the country where a yellow card is used in a Chip and Pin machine – the machine accepts the card but no payment is made.

Senior harm reduction advisor Dave McFarlane said: “Although on this occasion no offence was committed, this incident has all the hallmarks of crimes committed previously where a fake payment card is used to pay for goods fraudulently.

“We would advise all local shops and businesses to be on their guard for people working in groups of two requesting to purchase high value gift tokens and using a yellow payment card to do so”

Anyone with any information on incidents of this nature is asked to contact police on 101, quoting incident number 282 of April 2.