The Big Worries Over Credit Card Skimming

Losses of over one billion dollars a year are now being suffered on an international basis because of credit card skimming. This credit card scam is common in Latin America as well as Europe and Asia, and now it is starting to be seen in the United States.

When you try to purchase something in a store, it is easy to run this type of credit card scam when you give your card to a store employee to scan at the register. Your credit card may not only be swiped at the register to pay for your purchase, but it also may be swiped with a little hand-held machine known as a skimmer. The information in this skimmer is used by crooks to produce counterfeit cards from the hundreds of debit and credit cards it has information on.

There are these skimming rings working everywhere in the world and after your information is put into the skimmer it is downloaded into a computer and then it can be emailed to any location in the world. It was not as easy to commit this fraud in the past, because the card skimmers were very large machines that had to be hidden under the check-out counter.

The advances in technology in the past ten years, have made it possible to streamline the skimmer and make it small enough to be hand-held and out of sight of the unwary customer. The skimmers may be purchased much too easily over the internet for around three hundred dollars, but the credit card producing machine is more expensive, coming in at about five thousand to ten thousand dollars.

This credit card skimming scam is done in another way; the credit card information is pulled directly out of the card terminals by inserting a skimmer bug and later taking it out with the credit card information on it. The older credit card terminals are the ones that can be violated with this type of scam, but with the newer terminals this bugging has become much less prevalent.

The credit card thieves will quickly skim the information they need off of your cards and then begin to make their purchases with your credit card number. Much of the credit card fraud is committed through using the internet for purchases because of the increased popularity of online shopping. The internet is also used by the thieves to make certain that the card’s information is valid through the purchase of many low ticket items to be assured that the card is active.

The real victim in this crime may be the merchant who had the employee who did the skimming, because the cardholder is usually only responsible for up to fifty dollars of the total amount charged on his card. The merchant is held 100% responsible for the skimming exercise and risks loss on the merchandise, and is responsible for paying the fees of the investigation. The costs of investigating the charge-back claims of their customers is paid by the investigation fees paid by consumers and businesses who use the credit card companies.

Before beginning a criminal investigation into the skimming activity the ones who perform this scam know that a purchase must be made of at least two thousand dollars.

Visit JSNet.org for more information on the best credit cards available and also great deals on credit card with instant approval. JSNet.org also have more of Alisdair Cosgrove’s great articles including ‘Compare To Find The Best Credit Card Deal‘, visit today to read more of these great credit card articles!