"Skimming" scam affects Conway area residents
Officials with the Conway Police Department are investigating a banking scam that has affected the Conway area.
Nearly two dozen police reports were filed from customers of various banks in the community who claimed that money had been taken from their accounts without their permission.
Luther Guinn, Deputy Bank Commissioner of the Arkansas State Bank Department, said this type of scam, known as “skimming”, is something that has not been predominant in central Arkansas.
“One form of skimming is when someone puts a recording device in the ATM or on it, which would allow them to extract information from the card via the magnetic strip on the back of the card,” he explained. “When the information is passed along, it can be used anywhere.
“We have not been made aware of a widespread problem with skimming in Arkansas and we have not received any information in reference to the Conway area. This has been happening for a number of years, but we’re just hearing about it in our area now.”
While police reports indicate that customers with eight area banks were the victim of this scam, customers with Centennial Bank made up half of the complaints filed.
Cynthia Frost, senior vice president security officer for Centennial Bank, said one reason for the number of reports from Centennial Bank customers is that the bank requires its customers to file a report when they have been the victims of fraud. She also indicated that the bank’s customers who were affected had not used an ATM owned by Centennial Bank.
“We have a policy where we require our customers to file a police report when there has been fraudulent activity on their accounts,” she said. “It helps protect the customer and it helps the police department as well. While our customers have been affected by this skimming scam, we are sure that the device was not located in one of our bank machines. The scam has affected all of the Conway market, but it did not originate from one of our machines.”
Frost said that the bank has turned the case over to the Conway Police Department for further investigation.
Other area banks whose customers filed reports include: Simmons Bank, National Bank of Arkansas, Bank of the Ozarks, Regions Bank, Arkansas Federal Credit Union, First Security Bank and Bank of America.
La Tresha Woodruff, public information officer for the CPD, has confirmed that investigators are working with area banks and other agencies to try to resolve the case.
(Candie Beck is a staff writer and can be reached at 505-1238 or at candie.beck@thecabin.net)
Comments (11)
Add commentSkimming
Having been a victim of this crime (in another country some years ago) I simply don't use an ATM card if I can possibly avoid it. If I do use an ATM, I check my account on line every day. In many places, ATMs are located behind locked doors and you have to swipe your ATM to get into the machine. These are much safer, but if we have any in Conway I don't know about it. My other advice is to make sure the hand entering the PIN is completely covered, like with a piece of paper, as thieves sometimes install tiny cameras to record PIN entries.
Where we experienced this crime the police told me they don't pursue the criminal unless the amount stolen from a single person crosses a threshhold. It makes it the perfect crime, as one can get rich stealing relatively small amounts from many people. I'm glad to hear that the Conway PD is taking it more seriously.
HOW !!??
Forgive my ignorance, but I would love for someone to explain to me how these people are installing cameras and whatever other recording devices "in the ATM or on it", as the article states. I don't understand how they get access in or on the ATM to be able to install a device? Are they not locked and secured?
Hopefully this helps
I've been doing some reading on this subject this morning. Hopefully these links help (complete with pictures of what skimmers look like):
http://laurenbernat.com/2009/05/how-to-spot-atm-skimming-and-pin-capturi...
http://consumerist.com/2009/04/heres-what-a-card-skimmer-looks-like-on-a...
4mykids
It's probably a very tiny camera placed NEAR but not in the ATM.
With the size of the number pads on some ATMs, you could easily make out a pin number from a distance.
It happened to me
The same thing happened to me 2 weeks ago. Three other people that I know have it happened within the past month as well. We all have different banks, so we realized that it had to be bigger than a security breach at one of the banks. We were thinking that maybe it was a restaurant in town because that was the only place that our cards are out of our sight. Now, who knows where it's safe to use your debit card if these contraptions are on ATMs and gas pumps.
My card was used in Louisiana twice and the security division at the bank said the card was present each time. Seeing how it went straight from my purse to the shredder, there is no way. It seems to me that a "dummy" card was made. I hear it's quite easy to do.
As I talked to my friends, one card was used in Arizona, 2 in Michigan, and mine in Louisiana. Most charges were at gas stations and a couple at liquor stores.
Probably is a restaurant
and someone is taking pics of cards front and back or running through a scan machined (U can buy one to plug into your iphone) than they give this info to someone who than turns around and sells on the internet. The problem will be for this person who doing the taking of the info that it's actually pretty easy when there are this many victims (And more to come, two friends today told me they gots calls from their bank) to triangulate what resturant than figure out who was touching the cards... They always catch the first level, it's the person who they giving the info to that gets away w/ it.
Probably some college student who figured they'd never get caught and will end up w/ felony now.
just makes you want just use
just makes you want just use cash. it's a shame that there will always be people that want something for nothing.
The articles doesn't say ...
... whether what is getting "skimmed" is a small cash withdrawl or an unauthrized charge to a retailer.
Cash
@GM - The suspects are taking cash and unfortunately, the amounts are not small.
I still think that there is
I still think that there is more to it than just these folks that were here over the weekend. Three people that I know (plus myself) have had it happen in the past 3-4 weeks and the cards are being used in other states. Someone is also making these dummy cards and using them to buy gas and things at Wal-mart. They're not just using them to withdraw cash....