Card Skimming: Herkimer Police seem to have netted a big one
Photo by: ShutterCat7
Detectives from Herkimer Police Department seem to have netted a big one last month. They arrested Jerry R Prime and Quincy Thompson, both from Brooklyn, and charged them with several counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument. The arrest, police believe, may have busted a scam covering scores of people in three states.
The fraud suspects used stolen credit card information to buy Wal-Mart gift cards. They sold goods bought using these gift cards on the internet. They were arrested when they were seen using several credit cards to buy a Wal-Mart gift card at the store. A vigilant employee alerted the police who came and apprehended them.
At the time of the arrest, the duo was found to have almost a hundred credit and debit cards with them. It is suspected they illegally skimmed their victims’ cards and then used the stolen card information to transfer and use money from their card accounts.
The operation had one blemish, however: The officials mistakenly released Thompson on bail before they realized the true extent of the scam.
The incident reveals the practice of Card Skimming
Debit or Credit card details can be stolen using skimming devices. These are handheld devices about the size of a cell phone. It saves confidential data present in the magnetic strip of any card when the card is swiped in it. Critical data like account number and PIN collected in this manner can later be transferred onto blank cards or other credit cards. The ransacked account can then be accessed using the duplicate card.
The stealing can happen in the most innocuous of places. Gas stations are notorious in this respect. Customers who fill-up using their cards are at risk of losing their money if they let the card out of their sight. Yet, sometimes a wireless chip planted on a regular credit card machine may also be employed to do the trick. The chip is programmed to relay swiped info of a customer’s card to a laptop nearby.
Restaurants are another space where this is known to happen. Waiters here are known to connive and be paid as much as $10,000 a night just to swipe credit cards of diners through an out-of-sight skimmer.
As such, credit cards offer some protection against skimming fraud. Owners can report unauthorized use of the card and can thus free themselves from ensuing losses. Debit cards are completely exposed in this regard as payments are instantaneously debited from the account. Anybody can cleanup the account by transferring funds into something like a gift card and then use it at their leisure.
Source: uticaOD.com
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May 30th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Its a great work of police!They arrested Jerry R Prime and Quincy Thompson.They sold goods bought using these gift cards on the internet.both are those criminal who are busted a scam.They were arrested when they were seen using several credit cards to buy a Wal-Mart gift card at the store.its a nice effort.really…
November 16th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
This is why I always try to carry cash when going to any restaurant or store. I just don’t trust letting my card out of my site. I pretty much only use it at the pump at the gas station. I don’t know how safe that is but I’m certainly not going to take the time to go inside.