NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS
Every swipe your or , you may be exposing account data to clever scammers
By NOELLE M. STEELE nsteele@greenfieldreporter.com
GREENFIELD — Julie Cook doesn’t do her shopping in Greenfield.
So when a $1,000 charge to the Wal-Mart on North State Street popped up in her bank account records early last month, the Indianapolis woman knew something was wrong.
Around 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, a counterfeit credit card linking to her bank account was used to buy two laptop computers in Greenfield.
That was just hours after Cook and her husband had taken a taxicab ride in downtown Indianapolis. Cook paid the cab driver using her debit card.
It wasn’t long before officers had obtained surveillance tape showing that same man, along with an accomplice, using a counterfeit credit card at Wal-Mart. In just a matter of hours, the men had transferred Cook’s information to a blank card, likely with one of their own names on the front.
One of the men was arrested last week. A warrant is out for the other.
Cook was lucky. Police say credit card fraud is becoming increasingly hard to fight, especially when criminals create counterfeit credit cards attached to their victims’ bank accounts. That’s a new wrinkle in a class of crimes that’s already tough to follow for police.
Investigators can only guess how the thieves are obtaining their information, but Greenfield Police Detective Lt. Randy Ratliff has one theory – illegally used card skimmers.
A skimmer is a small electronic device used to swipe and store victims’ credit card information. It can be handheld or mounted and is inconspicuous to the untrained eye.
A handheld skimmer can fit easily in the apron pocket of a restaurant server, Ratliff cited by way of example. In a matter of seconds, a server on the way to the cash register can create an electronic copy of a customer’s card.
A mounted card skimmer can fit perfectly over the normal card slot on an ATM or gas pump, leading consumers to believe they are using their cards as normal.
Days later, suspicious charges start cropping up, baffling the victims whose cards are still in their wallets.
“In all of these, the victim is still in possession of their credit card,” Ratliff said.
Thieves usually make their way to the closest superstore – in Greenfield that’s Wal-Mart more often than not – to buy items like electronics and Visa gift cards.
Inattentive clerks in checkout lines are also partly to blame, police said.
In Cook’s case, surveillance video shows the clerk bagging the items without taking a second glance at the method of payment.
“They didn’t even look at the card,” said Detective Sgt. J.D. Fortner, who investigated the case. “He signed for it, and they left.”
In a credit card fraud at Wal-Mart last summer, three scammers working together attempted to use eight different credit cards to buy more than $2,800 worth of electronics. The cards were all declined, likely because the numbers were already reported stolen, and the men left the store.
The trio returned less than 24 hours later, this time with three additional credit cards. Two of the cards were declined, but the third went through, and the men walked out with $2,970.32 worth of merchandise.
Despite repeatedly declined cards, the clerk in the checkout line never asked for ID in either instance. Ratliff estimates Greenfield has had 10 similar cases over the last six months.
“It’s part of the problem. Nobody looks at credit cards anymore,” Ratliff said. “A red flag should come up if a person scans more than a couple of credit cards. A cashier should ask to see their ID at that point.”
Granted, there’s a good chance the suspect’s ID would have matched the counterfeit credit cards, tying officials’ hands further when it comes to detecting fraud as it happens.
In most cases, scammers steal card information from one jurisdiction and use the information in another. Not only does it make it harder for officers to track the cases, it makes identifying the suspects next to impossible.
“We have pictures, but we can’t identify them,” Greenfield Detective Ron Chittum said.
“God knows where they’re from,” Ratliff added.
Police have yet to identify an instance of skimmers being used locally to obtain information, but they say credit card users can never be too cautious.
“The small handheld ones could be here easily,” Ratliff said.
Consumers should look carefully at ATM machines for any suspicious or loose parts. The same goes for gas pumps. Also, avoid credit card transactions that involve the card being taken out of immediate sight.
Investigators say consumers are using credit cards at their own risk, as there is no surefire means of prevent the use of skimmers.
“There’s no way,” Chittum said. “Use cash.”
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