What Is Credit Card Skimming

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

This is an easy credit card scam to run when your card is used to make a purchase and it is scanned by the store employee.That store employee may be swiping your card with a small machine known as a skimmer as well as using it to pay for your purchase and this skimmer takes your information from your card and stores it in this machine’s system.The skimmer can retain the information on hundreds of credit cards and then it is used by unscrupulous people to print counterfeit cards.There literally are skimming rings working everywhere in the world because after your information is put into the skimmer it is downloaded into a computer and then can be emailed to any location in the world.

About ten years ago it was not as easy to accomplish this fraud as it can be today because the skimmers were large and bulky machines which had to be hidden under the counter.Due to the advanced technology of the past decade, the skimmer is streamlined and the small hand-held machine is easy to hide from the view of the unknowing customer.It is unfortunate that these skimmers are actually available for purchase over the internet for around $300, however the machine needed to produce the counterfeit cards costs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000.

Another form of this scam is done by actually pulling information directly from the credit card terminals by placing a skimmer bug into the terminal and later retrieving it with credit card information on it.The older terminals are the ones that can be violated in this type of scam, but with the newer terminals this bugging has become almost non-existent.





After the credit card information thieves have all the pertinent facts from you they will start to shop for the things they want and charge it to your credit card number.Online shopping has become more and more popular and this is the reason why so much of the credit card fraud is taking place over the internet.The way the information skimming thieves will check the credit card for it’s validity is to make several purchases of low cost items on internet websites to find out if the cards are active.

The real victim in this crime is the merchant who had the employee who did the skimming, although the cardholder is responsible for up to fifty dollars of the total amount charged on his card.The merchant is at risk for the loss of his merchandise and is one hundred percent responsible for the skimmer’s activities and the fees charged for the investigation.The costs of investigating the charge-back claims of their customers is paid by the investigation fees paid by consumers and businesses to the credit card companies.

The persons who are operating this type of credit card scam know that a purchase of at least $2000 has to be made before any criminal investigation can start.
Alisdair Cosgrove has been writing finance articles for many years and can find more of his work at the UK site CreditCardsWeb.co.uk, offering long term low rate credit cards for UK residents and also a great selection of free credit cards. Visit today to read more of Alisdair’s great credit card articles including credit card securirty

What Is Credit Card Skimming / Author: Alisdair Cosgrove