Paphos People

i received a call this morning from bank of cyprus worker,to come and update my details, alot of personal questions about father sending how much money per year.she told me about payment sent from father today.she wanted me in today, but told her i was too busy,and would come in on next free day.inquisitive about new payment sent,i went to check with bank machine, no money showing new.now iwas aware some kind of blackmail,so rang woman,wanting to know where money was.she told me she would release it,but i needed to come to bank.want kind of service is this, i think i might change to another bank

Are you sure it was bank of Cyprus and not a scam? Be careful, TBH I would always go and check it out at my branch...

It's not a scam just poor customer service to root out money laundering! Alpha Bank are the same with me every time a payment comes into my account from abroad - I get a phone call and have to answer a host of questions BUT I am always sure it's them I'm talking to first before I reveal anything, and anyway the questions aren't really about personal details more about who sent it, where it came from, will it be a regular payment, what's it for etc etc!

NEVER confirm or deny any information queried on the phone.
Ask for their name and contact number and tell them that you will get back to them...... but do no such thing !!!!
Make a personal visit to your bank to check the validity of the call or use a different telephone line to phone your bank on the number on your bank statement ( 99.9% it would have been a scam).
If your bank has no knowledge of the call ... inform your telephone provider and the police.

I had a phone call last week, telling me that I had a problem with my computer but they would help me solve it.
I put on my 'innocent, stupid voice' (not difficult) and said 'I don't have a computer' .......The phone line went dead, immediately ! (Never mind, they paid for the call !

yes , its to stop washing cash , our bank does it to us , we have credit card companies that download money into our accounts from the USA , they can see where its coming from , but they still ring us and ask us if we are expecting any large amounts

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REACH 1000`s of PAPHOS CUSTOMERS EVERY DAY FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT THE OTHERS CHARGE
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Whilst the optimist and the pessimist argued that the whisky glass was either half full
or half empty ? .
I drank it .....
The opportunist..

What amount do Alpha Bank...or any bank.....start querying?

I transfer a large amount at the beginning of April every year to cover my next 12 months visits to Paphos.
I have never had a query yet.

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Age improves with good wine

Alpha Bank query unusual amounts that make them suspicious. I remember some years ago we were on holiday in the UK and for some reason I was not able to use my cypriot mobile so I was using the Hotels phone and paying by card and also paying for Internet access by card so a lot of very small payments were showing. Alpha Bank rang me after the 2nd day. They then go through all your recent transactions to ensure they were all made by you. I also have accounts with Hellenic and Bank of Cyprus and neither of these have ever queried my payments in fact I have recently sent quite a large amount of money back to the UK and done it via debit card transactions of 2.5k each transaction with Transferwise and they have never queried it at all.
Personally I prefer that they do query if it protects me

my wife paid our water bill on line last week , the next day the bank rang us
and said there was a adnormal payment from our account , the wife said no its fine
I paid the water bill , then the woman from the bank said why did you pay paralimini water board instead of paphos
she had hit the wrong button on the web site while paying the bill , she never noticed, but the bank picked up on it
they refunded the money back and she paid the bill again ..

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REACH 1000`s of PAPHOS CUSTOMERS EVERY DAY FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT THE OTHERS CHARGE
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Whilst the optimist and the pessimist argued that the whisky glass was either half full
or half empty ? .
I drank it .....
The opportunist..