There are losses of over one billion dollars each year, due to the international problem of credit card skimming.This common type of credit card scam is happening in Europe, Asia and Latin America and is starting to be encountered in the United States on a more frequent basis.
It can be easy to run a credit card scam, such as this, when you give your credit card to a store employee in order to make a purchase.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 skimmer is equipped to hold information on virtually hundreds of credit cards, and from this information the crooks are able to produce counterfeit credit or debit cards.
The skimmer is capable of gathering the information on hundreds of cards; then information is downloaded into a computer to be emailed to skimming rings that are at work worldwide.Only a decade ago, this fraud was not as easy to accomplish as it is today, because the skimming machines were very large and they had to be hidden under the store’s counters.The improvement in the technology of the machines used in this skimming process over the past ten years has made it quite easy to hide the hand-held skimmer out of the sight of the customer who is interested in making the purchase.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.
One form of credit card skimming is done directly through the card terminals by placing a skimmer bug into the terminal and then retrieving it with the 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.
The credit card thieves will quickly skim the information they need from your card’s account and then begin to make their purchases with your credit card number.Over half of credit card fraud is committed over the internet, as shopping by this method is becoming more and more popular, card fraud on the internet has also increased. The internet is also used by the thieves to make certain that the card’s information is valid through the purchase of many low ticket items in order to be assured that the card is active.
The cardholder is most times just held responsible for up to fifty dollars of the total amount charged on the card, but the real victim in this crime is the merchant who had the employee who did the skimming.The merchant is responsible for payment of the fees for the investigation and he also is held one hundred percent responsible for the skimming activity and risks the loss of the merchandise.The money used by the credit card companies to offset the cost of investigating charge-back claims by their customers, comes from the investigation fees paid by consumers and businesses.
Before beginning a criminal investigation into this skimming activity, the ones who commit this scam know that a purchase must be made amounting to at least two thousand dollars.
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