Rich On Money

Be careful when using that ATM machine

We have an ongoing discussion in my firm about on-line banking. Everybody favors it, and I won’t go near it. My thinking is based on my information and this is what I think. I am told by my friends in the banking industry that banks are QUIETLY reimbursing their customers for tens of millions of dollars stolen as a result of on-line banking transactions. The banks never report the information to the press, and therefore it is never published.

The crooks perpetuating the thievery are never put on trial, because that would make the newspapers also, and therefore they get a pass. Now there is a new scam or is it an old scam that is just coming to the surface. You may be familiar with a device called a skimmer, also known as a parasite.

The device looks just like the bank card reader that you see every day. The thieves go into an ATM setup and put their skimmer device right over the device that the bank has installed for your usage. When you put your card into the machine, the skimmer reads all your information while the bank device performs your desired transaction. Nobody is the wiser for it.

So how the thieves get your pin number, because that can’t be read from the card remember. This is wild; the thieves are setting up hidden cameras in the ATM area that record you typing in the pin number. My suggestion is you had better get very close to that ATM device you are working with to block out any camera activity. The other alternative is that the bad guys put a little plastic overlay on top of the keyboard installed by the bank. It will read your pin number and give it to the thieves.

This procedure was recently used in February in several Bank of America branches in Suffolk County Long Island in New York. The bad guys began to use the information in April and May, and they used it to the tune of $217,000 among somewhere between 100 and 200 customers.