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Watch out for credit card skimmers
Credit card fraud and card skimming has increased drastically, with criminals using lost, stolen and fake cards to dupe, gain information and steal from bank accounts.
This is also costing the country millions of rands, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) said last week. On 28 November a local informant showed the Tabloid Newspapers a clip of a woman at an ATM whose card was taken and skimmed after she had withdrawn money.
After withdrawing her money, a man called her back to show her a slip - which he had placed in the ATM - that said that something had gone wrong with the transaction and that she would have to put her card into the ATM again.
The man pretended to help her by taking her card and putting it into the ATM. In one swift movement, he swopped her card with a fake card and placed the fake card in the ATM. The woman believed she was about to make a transaction with her "card" safely in the ATM.
The man handed her real card
to his partner, who quickly swiped it through a skimming device.
The moment the fake card re-appeared in the ATM slot to be taken out, the second man pretended to help her, swopping the cards and handing the real card back to her.
Inspector Collin Chetty, Communications Officer of Bayview SAPS, said that card "skimming and copying" devices and card-reading software were being brought into the country by outside sources that had identified a market.
"It's definite cause for concern; there has been a steady flow of this kind of crime." Card skimming involves swiping a stolen card through a small hand-held device, recording the card's information. Chetty said skimmers distract ATM users with offers of assistance, then quickly take the card and pass it to an accomplice.
The accomplice then skims and returns it almost immediately, without the victim being aware that the card was ever missing. Card information can then be downloaded to a computer and imprinted on a blank "clone card", he said.
To avoid becoming a victim of card skimming, he said, people should avoid using ATMs at odd hours of the day. They should also check card slots for attachments that do not match the colours of the rest of the machine.
People need to be more aware of their surroundings as well.
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