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By Didi Martinez, Amy Calvin and Cydney Weiner
Credit card skimmers need to be wary.
The US secret services have announced the opening of the holiday season with a national initiative to tackle the credit card skimming devices installed at gas stations. The operation, called "Operation Deep Impact", was launched on Thanksgiving Day and should coincide with increased demand for fuel during the holidays.
"Approximately 54 million Americans will be traveling across the city or across the country for Thanksgiving and in doing so, many will buy gas for their car," reads in a statement from L & amp; government agency. "These annual increases in the number of travelers on the road during the holidays mean more pay days for" à la carte "criminals who target victims at gas stations."
According to the Federal Trade Commission, there is skimming of the credit card when illegal card readers are installed in the payment area of a fuel pump. Once a consumer inserts his card into the fake reader, criminals then have access to that person's data to be able to use or sell online.
And this type of crime is only getting worse, said the Secret Service.
"Gas pump skimmers are getting worse, because there are more technologies to search for skimmers in ATMs. The bad actors then turn to the skimmers of gas pumps, "said Special Agent of the Secret Service, Matthew O'Neill.
The special agent said that he estimates that the agency recovers about 20 to 30 skimmers a week, the average skimmer having information about about 80 cards by the time he is retrieved by the authorities.
"They are easy to create, deploy, and recover very quickly from stolen credit card data. [criminals] does not even have to go back and recover the skimmer, "said O'Neill.
Until now, the Thanksgiving initiative has helped recover nearly 200 skimmers nationwide and avoid nearly $ 6 million in fraud, the agency said.
However, some vacationers have not been so lucky.
"They loaded Adidas and Nike. I've seen charges of $ 75, $ 80 and three charges, "said Steven Plake, a traveler to Fulshear, Texas, whose information was stolen from a gas pump.
"[I] went to the local gas station which was very close, used my card like everyone else, and then I guess this afternoon, I ended up finding a charge on my bank account that I knew I had not charged, "said Plake. "We ended up calling the bank and they realized, yeah, someone at your number."
The man said he had tried in the past to prevent fraud by manipulating the card reader, but this time was different from the fact that the skimmer was "super glued".
O'Neill recommends that consumers use cash as much as possible because it is increasingly difficult to spot skimmers at the pump.
"The challenge with fighting this crime is that the skimmers are placed inside the fuel pump," said the special agent. "Therefore, the consumer does not really have the opportunity to know if there is a skimmer inside."
But consumers can always make sure they are less likely to be fooled by performing a quick check before slipping, the FTC said.
"Make sure the gas pump panel is closed and shows no signs of tampering," wrote FTC specialist Colleen Tressler in an August blog post. about crime. "Many stations have now affixed security seals on the cabinet panel. If the pump panel is open, the label will indicate "empty". "
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