Identity Thieves Steal Credit Card Data At The Gasoline Pump

IdentityTheft — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:29:00 GMT

More Bad News At The Gasoline Station – identity thieves who install hard-to-detect electronic devices at stations to steal credit and debit card data.

If you drive a car – and that means almost everyone in the U.S. - an unthought-of source of identity theft worries has become a problem in many states. Incidents in many states have law-enforcement personnel scrambling to deal with a new identity theft threat - “skimmers” attached to gasoline pumps that store credit card data. These devices look so much like the actual card-swipe hardware used by gas stations that they’re hard to detect. Thieves attach these devices for a month or more and then retrieve them – as well as the data from thousands of credit cards.

Just yesterday, three men were arraigned in a Los Angeles courtroom for stealing over $2 million by installing devices on gas station pumps that recorded credit card numbers. They were each charged with conspiracy, identity theft, grand theft and computer access fraud, and each man faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. According to prosecutors, they installed skimmers on computerized gas pumps, which recorded credit card, debit card and PIN numbers that later were used to withdraw cash from ATMs. When arrested on February 25th, they were in possession of more than 10,000 stolen credit card numbers. Police also seized $40,000 in cash and several cars, including a Ferrari.

In February, Rocklin California police stated that that at least 57 people had their debit card information stolen by devices hidden in two gas pumps at one gas station. So far, at least $43,000 was taken from ATM accounts by cards created by the thieves using stolen numbers. It is likely that the total theft is much higher, as only two of the 16 financial institutions whose cards were affected have so far reported customers' losses to police. Police have obtained security camera footage of eight suspects using ATMs with the stolen PINs and homemade cards related to this skimming case.

Because using your credit or ATM card at the gas pump doesn’t involve a cashier, identity thieves find them to be an easy (and lucrative) target – in one estimate, between $1 million and $3.5 million was stolen from victims of gas pump identity theft in five states over four months in 2008!

Rise In Number Of Identity Theft Cases in 2009

IdentityTheft — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:02:00 GMT

The number if identity theft cases reported for 2009 has increased over the previous year once again, but a major study shows that increased security, consumer awareness and access to prevention services has had a beneficial effect for consumers.

The sixth consecutive Identity theft research study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research has been released for 2009 and shows the total number of identity theft or fraud cases rose 12% over the prior year. More than 11 million Americans were victimized last year by some type of identity theft. This is the second straight year that the number if cases has risen. In 2008, identity fraud rose 22% over the previous year, and almost 10 million Americans were individually affected. The total cost of identity theft in the U.S. amounted to $54 billion dollars. According to James Van ***, the President of Javelin Strategy & Research, “... fraud increased for the second straight year and is at the highest rate since Javelin began this report in 2003.

The good news is consumers are getting more aggressive in monitoring, detecting and preventing fraud with the help of technology and partnerships with financial institutions, government agencies and resolution services.”

The good news is that, as with the previous year's study, the average cost to each individual victim continues to decrease. In 2008, the report found detection and resolution efforts are working well, and that the efforts of consumers and businesses have been effective in detecting and resolving fraud more quickly. As a result the mean consumer costs of identity fraud plummeted by 31 percent to $496 per incident in 2008. In 2009, that figure dropped even further to an average $373 per fraud incident. Out‐of‐pocket costs can include unreimbursed financial losses, lost wages due to time taken off work, and legal fees for those victims who attempt to prosecute those responsible. As banks have increased their efforts in counteracting fraud and minimizing the cost and inconvenience suffered by consumers. Many victims did not experience any out of pocket costs at all.

The time in resolving fraud has also decreased for the second straight year. The average time to resolve cases of fraud was 21 hours in 2009. Due to the zero‐liability fraud protection offered by most banks and credit card companies, most victims will only have to pay out‐of‐pocket expenses to cover their time in resolving fraud, not for reimbursing fraudulent charges.

These decreases are likely due to greater consumer awareness of the risk of identity theft and the increased availability of security, controls and consumer education campaigns by banks, card associations and other organizations; and greater access to more sophisticated prevention and detection resources from privacy and security companies. As businesses and consumers continue to work closely together and with consumers more frequently updating anti-spyware and anti-virus software and protecting sensitive data by safely adopting online financial services, such as online banking and bill paying, the Javelin report states that it expects these trends to continue down in the year 2010.

ID theft : gas pump

﻿Identity Thieves Steal Credit Card Data At The Gasoline Pump

Rise In Number Of Identity Theft Cases in 2009

Identity Thieves Steal Credit Card Data At The Gasoline Pump