Identity theft is at an all time high and travelers and people on vacation are at a much greater risk than people in other situations. This article outlines how someone can tap into your bank account and drain it dry without your ATM debit card or PIN number and how banks are taking a tougher stance on correcting it in your favor.
High tech thieves have installed tiny card readers at ATMs to record the data off of your card while hidden cameras capture you punching in your PIN number. With this information they can make a duplicate card and drain your account. Take a look at the ATM before you use it. Does everything look like it belongs there? One man found that the ATM that he was about to use had a loose cover around the card slot. He pulled on it and found that it was not original equipment, someone added it to the ATM
Another scam used to drain your account involves a thin sheet of plastic, about the size of an ATM debit or credit card that is put into the card slot before you even get there. You put your card in and the machine can not read your card through the sheet of plastic. The machine doesn’t even know that your card is there. You punch buttons and nothing happens. You push the cancel button and still nothing happens. It looks like the machine has eaten your card. After a while when you walk away in frustration, the scam artist comes up to the machine and pulls out the plastic sheet and recovers your card. In addition they probably saw you enter your PIN number several times as you tried to get the machine to work.
If this happens to you, look for a little plastic tab or plastic edge in the card slot. Take it out and you can get your card back. Be sure to report it as soon as possible. Just watch out for the scam artist, he may be watching.
April 15, 2003
By E. Scott Reckard
The Los Angeles Times
Consumers, banks clash on ATMs
As fraud claims rise, some financial institutions are taking a tougher stance when it comes to giving money back
LOS ANGELES -- Despite bank promises of "zero liability" for customers victimized by automated teller machine fraud, getting credit for stolen funds isn't always automatic, as Kelly Quick of Studio City learned...
Quick discovered that someone had tapped ATMs to siphon $1,420 from his …checking account. He notified the bank, and the missing funds were credited to his account…
After about three weeks, the bank took the money back, saying it had "determined that the transactions in question were authorized."
But his ATM card had not been lost or stolen, and he had not disclosed his PIN to anyone.