Credit Card Skimming

It is not just the every day person who falls victim to card fraud, it happens to all walks of life, from Joe public to famous celebrity, the crooks don’t discriminate on wealth or class.

It recently happened to Scott Mills, a disc jockey on Radio 1, who fell victim to a “skimming” device that was inserted in an ATM (hole in the wall machine) that scanned all of the details from his bankcard.

It was only spotted by Scott when he returned to a cash machine to withdraw some more cash and found that the ATM was telling him that he was over his limit. Scott said that ‘When he tried to take out some more cash and was told that he was over the limit, his first reaction was one of, and that he had not withdrew any cash for 2 days, so why all of a sudden he was unable to get any cash’. He followed that up with ‘It’s not very nice when it happens to you’.

It isn’t no matter whom you are, to have your hard earned cash stolen from you is one thing, but to know that someone out there has your personal details logged away and can be using them for all manners of things, is quite frightening.

The system that the crooks will use is one of applying the “skimming” device into the slot that you will insert your card into, this will then read the magnetic strip on the back of the card and copy the details into the machine. A small camera is placed somewhere on the top of the ATM and out of sight and this will record you as you punch in your four-digit pin. Now having all the details needed, the crooks can now empty your account of the money you have in it and if you don’t often use an ATM, then this can go unnoticed for quite a lengthy period of time.

The fact is this type of card fraud is on the rise and is now an everyday occurrence for many, as the crooks who use this form of card fraud stole £74.6 million from card users in 2004, this was a massive increase on 2003 of 40%.

When using an ATM the best thing to do is to be a little more vigilant when you are using them and try and cover the key card with one hand as you use the other to punch in the numbers, the crooks may still get your card details from the strip, but without the Pin they will not be able to bleed your bank account dry.