Wednesday, August 06, 2008

New pain at the pump: Card skimming

Gas stations and convenience stores are probably among the most reported locales for card skimming, in which debit and credit cards are double-swiped and PINs are observed to commit fraud. Since my own debit card was skimmed a few weeks ago (Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Cloned!), I've stopped paying for gas inside and opting to pay at the pump where I am sure that my card does not leave my hands. Well, things are getting more complicated. Apparently pumps are becoming a common place for thieves to place covert card skimmers, at least in the US. See: Thieves skim credit card data at fuel pumps - Yahoo! News.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Our provincial police and a card manufacturer put on a good seminar a few months ago about card fraud.

It was sobering to see the level of sophistication of the criminals.

Apparently it's not uncommon to find these skimmers (for the card) / cameras (for the PIN) with wireless capabilities so that the criminal doesn't have to risk retrieval of the equipment.