Top Ten Scams of the Decade #5
Number Five: Credit Card Skimmers
Back in 2004, I appeared on Today Tonight warning about credit card skimmers.
Since then we’ve had countless more attacks on people’s credit cards and the banks have responded with updating their security. Your average ATM slot is now covered with so many bits of coloured plastic and flashing lights that it looks like it might be capable of intelligence thought.
The idea is simple. A skimmer is placed belong the ATM card slot which reads and copies your card as you put it in the machine.
Since ATMs are harder to scam, the swindlers have moved onto other methods.
- In October, I had reports of taxi drivers skimming people’s cards when they went to pay on eftpos. The skimmer was hidden under the seat and the PIN was obtained remembered when passenger entered it in the machine.
- A dog in Sydney was found to have a skimmer attached to it’s collar. Police believe it was trained to rubbed up against victims and copy the card in their wallet.
- A man in Canberra went door to door posing as a delivery man in 2008. The victim had to pay a COD charge of a few dollars. However, his dodgy EFTPOS machine copied their card and remembered their PIN.
-This week, I’ve been getting reports of skimmers being attached to ANTI-skimming ATMS in Sydney
The ATMs have gotten safer but there are still more skimmers out there then in skim milk.
Wait. Let me try that again. More cards skimmed than milk which is skimmed in some sort of skimmed milk factory.
There’s more skimming going on then in a skinny cow skimming stones across a river…of skimmed milk.
I’ll get back to you.
Tomorrow: Real Estate Refinancing