Have you heard of this? A credit card “skimmer” was found inside a gas pump! See…?

Jackson: Have you heard of this? A credit card “skimmer” was found inside a gas pump! See…?
…details…
As if they aren’t gouging us enough at the pump, a credit card “skimmer” was found INSIDE a Pennsylvania convenience store (Wawa) pump. It’s a device that steals credit and debit card information and allows thieves to steal your valuable dollars…

Apparently, all of Wawa’s gas pumps from New Jersey to Virginia are now being checked routinely for these skimmers. They measure about 5×8 inches and they are an electronic board that can be wired to the inside of a pump’s card reader. They can also be wired into ATM machines.

I just thought I’d give a warning out there to you all…check for suspicious looking credit card readers, check your statements carefully, and if possibly, try to pay for gas with cash!

Answers and Views:

Answer by Supernatural
They have been around for years.I got skimmed at a Miami station 10 years ago.

Answer by Hettie
thanks so much for getting the word out. my mom was a victim of identity theft and ive been very careful so it wont happen to me but i never even thought of that before. ill definitly use cash from now on!

Answer by Oneida
In 2004 I was on a business trip to West Palm Beach Florida and my credit card was skimmed by a device like that. I was able to pinpoint from the charges that it happened at around 11PM at either an upscale restaurant. In the following 12 hours (between 11PM and 11AM the next day) more than $ 7000 in charges were racked up on the card all over the state of Florida.

The first fraudulent charges were a series of $ 100 cigarette and liquor purchases at about 30 gas stations. The next charges amounted to several thousand dollars worth of gas all over the Miami area. Many of those purchases were simultaneous. Following that there were thousands of dollars of purchases at Target and Wal-Mart stores, also happening simultaneously throughout the state of Florida.

What they do is skim the magnetic data off the card and use it to quickly produce hundreds of bogus cards with the same data. They sign the cards using your name in the handwriting of the person making the purchases, so if the clerks that see the cards do a signature comparison, it checks out.

The will run a particular card until it is maxed out and then discard it. It all happens VERY quickly, and there are scores of people all using the same card at the same time in various locations. Usually, by the time you realize there’s a problem or your actual card stops working, the whole thing is over and the bogus cards no longer exist. They occasionally catch someone using it by going back through surveillance tapes at places like gas stations. But the catches are few and far between and there are so many of these incidents in certain areas that the police can’t keep up with the reports.

In the past most of those skimming readers were hand-held devices. So often the skimming took place out of your sight. A reason to always be suspicious when an establishment takes your credit card to another room to run it through the scanner. But in my case I saw them run the card through the scanner attached directly to the cash register. The credit card reader itself won’t necessarily look suspicious. What the criminals do is place a small insert into the reader that the owners of the establishment aren’t even aware is there.

My credit card company told me that the culprits are often workers at otherwise reputable businesses who are working for those rings. It could be anyone from the person waiting on you to the cleaning staff. They generally purchase certain kinds of resellable things.

Many credit card companies have monitoring systems in place that recognize certain purchase patterns and flag them, which causes a block to be placed on the card. But the problem with this particular system is that it can all happen in the space of a few hours and by the time the pattern is flagged and the card is frozen, the charges have already been made.

In my case, it was not an credit card, per se, but a Visa debit card. Much more dangerous in a scenario like this, because it means that the actual money is taken from your account immediately. Fortunately, my contract included fraud insurance and the company was very good about investigating quickly and returning my money. But I was very very lucky. Mine happened to be a card drawn on a Schwab investment account, and they had particularly good service to cover fraud. Not every bank or credit card company would offer that.

If you are concerned about this (and you should be), you should very carefully read the terms and conditions surrounding fraud in the fine print of your contract.

And beware of major tourist areas. They are the prime target. Visa informed me in 2004 that Florida, especially the Miami and Orlando areas, were the #1 hotspot in the US for that kind of fraud.

Here’s an interesting thing to consider. Back in 2004 they told me that this system was most often used to purchase large quantities of gas. They explained that the theft rings often have vehicles that are fitted with large auxiliary gas tanks. They fill them up and then take the gas to poor neighborhoods where they can resell it at a lower price than what’s currently available at the pumps. I would expect, with the current gas price situation in the US, that you’re going to start seeing a lot more of this.

So take every precaution you can, particularly in knowing how your credit card company handles fraud claims. The chances of you finding out before the card has been maxed out are very very slim. So your only recourse will be to rely on the fraud insurance and terms you have with the card or financial institution itself.