All you need is a fake moustache to card skim

Fake moustaches are always funny
Photo owned by semarr (cc)

Did you read this morning about the massive card skimming scam carried out by individuals posing as maintenance personnel in shops across the nation? Skim devices were fitted to registers; card details were unwittingly forwarded remotely to these criminals by retail staff. Stolen card details were then accessed in countries where Chip and Pin technology is not used. Banks are carrying the cost can.

What’s most surprising is the lack of information available about this operation. We don’t know the retailers affected or their locations. Banks don’t appear to be contacting customers at all, as the call went out on Morning Ireland this morning that customers who are traveling abroad to countries without Chip and Pin should contact their banks as banks have put €100 limits on cards affected. Banks are not making the effort to contact these customers, despite the fact that they know who these customers are. Strange, no?

Are there not formal procedures in place to guard against this? It seems like the simpliest way to compromise the bank details of customers – get shop staff acting as enablers for fraud. Bloody scary. I also find it amazing that criminals could simply pose as maintenance staff and pull it off successfully. Fake moustaches anyone?

August 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am • Filed in Geekery



Comments

One Comment to “All you need is a fake moustache to card skim”

  1. Anthony Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    Heard about this today alright. Strange that they wouldn’t contact customers directly. There seems to be a general “we’ll let the problem work itself out” mindset going on.



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