Credit card skimming causes a problem of international proportions, which accounts for losses of over one billion dollars a year.In the United States this type of credit card scam is now being used although it is more commonly implimented in Latin America, Asia and Europe.
This is an easy credit card scam to run when your card is used during the time of a simple purchase and it is scanned by the store employee at the store’s cash register.When the store employee swipes your card for the purchase, it could also be swiped across a small machine in their hand called a skimmer, which stores the information on your card into its own system for the store employee to use to steal from you.This little hand-held machine is set up to store the information from hundreds of debit and credit cards and the information is then used by counterfeiters to produce bogus cards.
There are skimming rings working in nearly every corner of the world and as soon as your information is put into the skimmer, it is then downloaded into a computer and is ready to be emailed to anyone worldwide.It was not as easy to commit this fraud in the past, because the card skimmers were very large machines that had to be hidden under the check-out counter.Some of the technological advances of the past few years has made it a possibility for these skimming machines to be hand-held and thus, invisible to the unsuspecting customer.The ease in which these skimmers can be purchased is in itself criminal, in that the machine used in the skimming process is offered over the internet for about three hundred dollars, however the machine used to print off the credit cards costs much more, an amount from five thousand to ten thousand dollars.
Another form of skimming is done through the placing of a skimmer bug directly into the credit card terminals and then retrieving it later with credit card information on it.With the introduction of the newer credit card terminals, this bugging scam is no longer the problem it can be with the older terminals which are much easier to violate in this way.
When the credit card information thieves have gained all the pertinent facts on you they will begin shopping for the things they want and charge it to your credit card number.Much of the credit card fraud is committed through using the internet for purchases because of the increased popularity of online shopping. The information skimming thieves will check the credit card information for it’s validity by making several purchases of low cost items on internet websites to find out if the cards are active.
The cardholder is one victim of this crime and is responsible for up to fifty dollars on the total amount charged on his card, however, the major victim in all of this is the merchant whose employee did the skimming.After the skimming is discovered the merchant has to pay for the cost of the investigation and is one hundred percent responsible for the losses caused by the criminal activity and is also at risk for the loss of the merchandise.The investigation fees paid to the credit card companies by consumers and businesses is what is used to offset the costs of investigating charge-back claims by their sustomers.
Those who do this type of skimming scam operation know that a purchase of at least $2000 must be made before a criminal investigation can begin.
Visit JSNet.org for more information on credit cards and various credit card articles on how to protect your credit cards from fraud.
