OTHER FORMS OF CARD FRAUD

More than a year ago, I had the most unique and unconventional date. Would you believe that it took place in the most unusual of places and yet it stands to be among the most memorable events of my life?

It was about 11 in the evening and coming from a day’s work in the office, we were looking forward to being together that night. After seeing that most of the restaurants and bars were filled, it was a spur of the moment decision to park our car in a gasoline station in Timog Avenue, Quezon City. Of course it wouldn’t be possible for someone to park his car there for more than five minutes without the security guards noticing. But since it was a consensus of sorts, I with my “ehem” badge of authority talked to the security guard and for a few bucks on the side was able to position our car very strategically.

As with all other dates with her, every second was a moment. There was no limit to what we talked about. We discussed everything under the sun “este” moonlight coupled with the aroma of gasoline and we have proven that the odor had no match for our addiction for each other. In between discussions, there would be kisses and…more kisses. The truth of the matter is that the event was ultra memorable not for the kisses but the manner by which we spent almost 3 hours chit-chatting in the most unusual of places. Had it not for a call to go back in the office, we would have stayed longer there or transferred to…another gasoline station for a change in ambience. Hehe.

What does this have to do with card fraud? Believe it or not there is for one of the prevalent forms of credit card fraud originates from a gasoline station.

Skimming is a type of credit card fraud wherein a replica or duplicate card is prepared containing the credit card details of a cardholder stolen through a skimmer or skimming device. The concept of a skimmer is that once a credit card is swiped through it, the credit card information contained in the magnetic strip is copied in the skimming device. Aferwhich, the syndicate may then proceed with the creation of a replica card by the use of the information from the compromised cardholder.

Through the years, I have seen the evolution of various skimmers in the market, from the first ones which have to be connected with a credit card terminal to the now commonly used “stand-alone” devices which do not require attachment to any card swiper. In some jurisdictions, law enforcement agencies were able to confiscate skimmers using SIM cards that are capable of transmitting the copied information to a waiting mobile phone.

For those of you who have to see one, a skimmer is no different from the access card swiper you see in your offices. It is for this reason that syndicates can freely purchase a swiper from an ordinary electronic store and use it in their fraudulent scheme. Skimmers nowadays are very small, as big as an ordinary mobile phone and in fact can be mistaken with one.

Syndicates would normally look for a cohort mostly in restaurants and gasoline stations where cardholders would normally handover their cards to waiters and gasoline attendants without having to look where their cards are actually brought.

To those of you who would use your cards to gas up, or pay for your dine outs, how many of you would personally bring your credit cards to the cashier to have it swiped? Very few to none maybe. But of course, if you are comfortably seated in your car while gassing up, would you alight from the vehicle and personally bring the card to the cashier just so that the attendant would not have to touch your card at all?

For this reason, this aspect of credit card use is the most vulnerable to credit card skimmers.

Since stand-alone skimmers are very small in size, waiters and gasoline attendants can simply keep them in their pockets and wait for customers to hand over their credit cards. Thereafter, the waiters/gasoline attendants while walking from the customer to the credit card terminal would simply swipe the card in the skimmer effectively copying the magnetic strip information without the knowledge of the unsuspecting customers. At the end of the day, the skimmer is returned to the syndicate by the cohort in exchange for cash.

As with the other forms of card fraud, the syndicate goes on a shopping spree after the card has been produced.

In the middle of that memorable date, I was reminded that the said gasoline station happened to be a compromised merchant in some of the previous cases we had. To this date, she is yet to know that the place where we decided to spend the worthy three-hours of our lives is actually a point of compromise for fraudsters. Likewise, I have to tell her that midway into that memorable date, I was also doing surveillance simultaneously. Hehe. Me and my complicated life.