I work in the ATM industry and always tug on the card readers at ATMs and gas stations before swiping my card. It'll only catch the external skimmers, but I'd still rather be safe than sorry. I've seen some of the skimmer overlays on the market and they are extremely real looking and would fool 99% of the consumers using the machine.

ESSO Ordinaire

Wow

I got hit by one of these in late December. They cloned my card and spent 1k before we knew what hit us.

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They cloned my card and spent 1k before we knew what hit us.

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Probably less than what my wife would have spent, so I'm not sure I would have reported this!

All my accounts know to call me if a transaction is over $100 to verify, yeah it is a PITA but easier in the long run

big ben said:

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All my accounts know to call me if a transaction is over $100 to verify, yeah it is a PITA but easier in the long run

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I definitely don' think that's easier in the long run. I've had a card compromised twice before and all it took was a phone call to have the transactions denied and get a new card sent to me. I guess maybe if you rarely charge anything over $100 ...

big ben said:

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All my accounts know to call me if a transaction is over $100 to verify, yeah it is a PITA but easier in the long run

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Wow, that would be a PITA!!! I've had my card compromised 3 times over the past couple of years and just turned on immediate push notification for all charges. This way I can keep closer tabs on the card and cancel it before the thieves run a ton of charges on it. About 3 months ago when compromised I had about 25 charges over a few weeks time, but only one of the charges was over $100.

91AggieLawyer said:

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They cloned my card and spent 1k before we knew what hit us.

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Probably less than what my wife would have spent, so I'm not sure I would have reported this!

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Oldie but a goody.

It was a PITA to flag all the charges because it was local, and I was still using my legitimate card. So I had to wade through the history and remember which was legit and which was fraud.

So many pumps have LCDs now the pump could easily generate a transaction barcode and let you pay over the phone without NFC.

Can't fake an instantly created barcode.

Exxon doesn't exist everywhere.

Yeah, but those aren't brand specific.

They could use NFC instead of barcodes, but that doesn't really eliminate the possibility of someone intercepting the NFC.

Thats pretty scary. Skimmers are all over china, but almost everyone uses WeChat/Alipay to pay for stuff now.

(Scan a QR Code and Send a payment). The lady that runs the fruit stand inside my apartment complex pretty much uses this for payment. I go buy Fruits and veggies, she has a QR Code stuck on the front door of her place, I scan it and enter my PIN and the money comes out of my account right away, and she gets payment instantly.

I just realized in the US, I pretty much only use Shell fuel and only use my shell card, so it mostly wont help a skimmer unless they're gonna use it at another shell station....

Anytime my card it used, it automatically sends an email to me, which I use for receipt purposes as well as to ensure no unauthorized purchases are made. This usually hits the inbox on my phone before the card is handed back to me.

Just this week, I got a text from citi asking if I was trying to spend $3,048 at a BestBuy in Montana. Luckily fraud monitoring caught it and denied the transaction, just as soon as I saw the email from usage of my card

I guess some of you use your card far less than I do. I buy everything on my credit card and pay it all at the end of the month. If I got a notification every time it was used it would be unbearable.

The only time I've had my info taken, the credit card company dealt with it with a two mi the phone call.

One of the problems with gas pumps is they use a pretty common key. People are putting their skimmers inside the pumps so pulling on the card reader won't expose an overlay. This is one reason pumps have started putting security tape on the outside. Though I hear that's being replicated in China. ATMs have a similar problem with keys, but they're opened/monitored much more frequently than gas pumps.

This is a good example of an external ATM skimmer. No one would recognize it isn't part of the ATM. Most of the time, these types of skimmers also have a keypad overlay or a small camera to catch your PIN/zip. So if you notice a keypad that looks strange, or "new", when the rest of the pumps have old/worn keypads, I'd be suspicious.

Cut off a finger on prosecution.

I've been on the fence about getting a gas card...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/all-about-skimmers/

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I guess some of you use your card far less than I do. I buy everything on my credit card and pay it all at the end of the month. If I got a notification every time it was used it would be unbearable.

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this

MouthBQ98 said:

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Cut off a finger on prosecution.

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Make it a hand.

And I've gotten in the habit over the past 6 months of tugging on card readers as well. Haven't found one personally, but there have been 2 found (that I know of) at a Valero I sometimes use.

never seen a skimmer, but the security tape is almost always cut on any pump in the ****ty part of town so I pay inside

A few months ago they found a boatload of pretty sophisticated skimmers wired directly to the internals of pumps at several Exxon stations around me (far N Dallas area). Apparently the devices even had a Bluetooth module so that once it was installed, all the crooks had to do was drive by every now and then to a do a wireless download of the stolen data. No telling how many months those were in place before being discovered. Same comment as above though, I'd noticed for a while that the security tape at the stations in question was cut more often than not. I had actually gotten conditioned to ignore it. Lesson learned. :/

That's the area. Any pump between mockingbird and walnut hill east of 75 seems to have the tape cut

https://instagr.am/p/CzPumpnt-12

Another type of skimmer to look for.

How many legit keypads are gonna get pried off by people checking?