Had my credit card skimmed last week at a local gas station - probably off Route 7 as you head into Sterling. FFX County Police told me this is happening with greater frequency. The damage cost my bank thousands in fraudulent charges. Closely check the card slot when you insert your CC.

Skimming is old technology. All they need is a phone or tablet with bluetooth and they can capture hundreds of credit card #s with expiration dates, security codes and pins in a few minutes. Just have to drive down any major road with businesses such as gas stations, fast food, etc. and within a few minutes they will have hundreds of valid credit numbers that they can sell on the web!

That's not precisely how it's done.

If FCPS knew how to do this, they'd have enough money to hire Eric Jensen full time at several million a year.

ACTUAL Hacker Wrote:
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> That's not precisely how it's done.

And how! But it is a nice (mis)connection of various data points. Easy to see why someone who doesn't actually understand the ecosystem would leap to that conclusion, given all the vague misreporting that we see on a weekly basis.

Democrats committing crimes.

There's nothing worse than a Democrat who sees that what someone else has belongs to said Democrat.

it's not hard but i'm sure they have a fishing lines out

it's not like a bank has money or influence to find a theif right?

hey did that bank close doors the same day the obama.gov road crew was doing work in the area? i wonder if the bank did that knowing how shady such crews might be.

CC Losses Wrote:
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> Had my credit card skimmed last week at a local
> gas station - probably off Route 7 as you head
> into Sterling. FFX County Police told me this is
> happening with greater frequency. The damage cost
> my bank thousands in fraudulent charges. Closely
> check the card slot when you insert your CC.

So what actually happened? Was a gadget installed on the pump over the regular slot? What did it look like? Or was it something else? What are you advising us to check?

There are credible reports of skimmers being placed *inside pumps*. Apparently there's an expansion port, so if you can distract the clerk long enough to open the pump (with a standard key -- surprise, they aren't unique per pump) you just plug it in and skim away. Data sent via cell.

So the thing to check is that the seal on the pump is intact. Of course, it's even possible that someone notices the seal is broken, checks, misses the skimmer, and replaces the seal...in which case you're SOL.

The other thing to check is your statements. Set alerts for transactions over a reasonable threshold (I have mine at $200 currently). Of course that won't stop a series of small bleeds, but will detect major hits.

AmEx is amazingly fast with the alerts: every time I spend over $200, I'm slightly irritated because some idiot texts me *just* after I sign, while I'm still at the counter. Then I check and realize it's AmEx!