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More Gas Station Credit-Card Skimmers

Posted by kdawson on from the look-for-the-guy-with-the-blue-tooth dept.

coondoggie notes a Network World piece on credit-card skimmers found installed in gas pumps, this time in Florida. Like the similar wave of attacks in Utah earlier this year, the latest crop uses Bluetooth to transmit the illicitly collected data. Does this mean an accomplice has to hang around within 3m of the pump? "The Secret Service has indicated there's a crime wave throughout the Southeast involving the gas-station pump card skimmers, and it may be traced back to a single gang that may be working out of Miami... St. Johns County in Florida has also been hit by the gas-pump card skimmers. [A local sheriff's department spokesman] says criminals wanting to hide the credit-card skimmers in gas pumps have to have a key to the pump, but in some cases a single key will serve to get into many gas pumps." Here's an insight from the banking industry on the skimming fraud.

4 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. No worries here. by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always pay for gas in cash. I think I will not change this personal policy in the near future.

  2. Doesnt sound overly hard to by kaptink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they make gas stations check their pumps once a day for skimmers? Perhaps when they set the price in the morning. Seems relatively simple.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
  3. Re:Hiders Keepers? by dan_linder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and with the price of flash memory so low, it would be pretty easy to hide a little digital camera to snap photos of the person as they put the card in and/or stood in front of the machine. It would be easy to download those too and if they saw a few with the manager and a customer standing and pointing at the machine they would know that the gig was up and to just walk away.

    I'm really thinking the cash idea is the way to go from now on. :-(

    Dan

  4. Re:Get the chip by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is one unpleasant downside to "chip & PIN"...

    While it is certainly more secure than mag stripe, the various issuing institutions, at least in Britain, have tried to use this to argue that theft/skimming losses should now be the fault of the "negligent" customer, rather than their problem.

    I have nothing against better security, I do have a problem with better security being tarted up as evidence that no intrusion could possibly have occurred without the connivance of the customer.