[ale] OT Ouch. Stay away from proprietary technology.

[DJ-Pfulio]

ATM skimmers were about a year worth of articled over at : KrebsOnSecurity -
just looked. The most current article there (Feb 3rd) is about a skimmer at
Safeway **on** the checkout PoS device!
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/safeway-self-checkout-skimmer-close-up/ Can
we all say "inside job?"  A well-made skimmer is impossible for most people,
including me, to recognized. The criminals have make injection mold, fitted,
devices to place over the real ATM/PoS stuff for years.

Georgia and the Atlanta metro area has had skimmers for at least 5 yrs. The
quicky-mart folks don't seem to notice when these are added in less than 20
seconds at the pump.

Debit cards got credit-card-like legal protections about 10 yrs ago. Check Clark
Howard's website for more specifics. OTOH, I've refused to switch to a debit
card and fortunately my bank has retained their Maesto ATM network connections
which have worked in every country I've traveled. With debit card fraud, they
have your money already and we have to beg to get it back. With credit card
fraud, they have the bank's money, not mine, so the bank is much more likely to
work to get it back. That's my theory.

ATMs in foreign countries often have huge fees. Fortunately, my bank pays any
ATM fees, so the $15 added fee in Thailand didn't matter to me.  Also, around
Cancun, there is a criminal group who owns almost every ATM machine in the town
that isn't inside a bank. Their goal is to capture the card data so they have
access to your accounts. A link:
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/09/whos-behind-bluetooth-skimming-in-mexico/
and
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2984857/security/when-in-mexico-don-t-use-the-atms.html
Since mostly foreigners use those and our legal protections against fraud DO NOT
APPLY, there is little risk to those gangs.

Be careful out there.  Cash still works, BTW.



On 02/08/2016 12:51 AM, Alex Carver wrote:
> The biggest solution: dump debit cards.  You have protections by law for
> credit cards which do not apply to debit cards and, in many cases, the
> credit card issuer has better policies on the books for fraudulent
> activity.
> 
> You also avoid the "temporary charge" situation that is usually found on
> debit cards.  Many merchants post a charge to debit cards well above the
> amount you saw at the checkout terminal as a hold.  When this happens,
> it acts like that amount is withdrawn already leaving it unavailable for
> further purchases.
> 
> After that, watch for skimmers.  Take time to look at the device you're
> about to use, tug on the card reader, whatever you need to spot a
> skimmer.  If you find it, report it and go somewhere else.  It's very
> easy for someone to install a skimmer on things like gas pumps and ATMs,
> especially ATMs that are private brand (inside stores) or in foreign
> countries.
> 
> 
> 
> On 2016-02-07 20:51, Scott Castaline wrote:
>> Back in 2009 I had a similar situation happen to me. At the time Iwe
>> didn't have any credit cards so this happened to my debit card. I had
>> been down in Tampa and I had no problems until I got back home. I had
>> filled the rental car with gas before turning it using that card with no
>> problem. My wife picks me up at the airport and I filled our van up with
>> gas again using the same card. We get over to Kroger's I went to pick up
>> a prescription from the pharmacy and got declined. At first didn't think
>> anything of and used my wife's card no problem. Later I go to use my
>> card again to check out at Krogers and was declined again even when they
>> entered the card info manually. I called the bank (then it was ING
>> Direct and is now Capital One 360) and they didn't know why but my card
>> had been frozen. As it turned out it was the company that handled their
>> clearing and approvals, that company informed us that between the time
>> that I got gas and then the first declined attempted there were 5 credit
>> requests totaling $30,000 that were very far apart from each other in
>> Mexico at the same time. So all charges were declined and my card was
>> frozen. A week later I got a new card.
>>
>> Nine months later, I had made it a daily practice to go online with my
>> banks and one morning I see several charges totaling $5,000 on my new
>> card. This time I had to do all the leg work to resolve the issues. The
>> worst part was that night I several bills scheduled which didn't happen
>> and by the time I got it straightened out I was late an several of them
>> getting clobbered with late fees. All but one merchant wound up
>> canceling the orders, Champion Sports was very quick to ship out the
>> order with in 2 hours, but did credit my account. Then I did mange to
>> get the late fees waived after several phone calls and getting escalated
>> to upper management gophers. Fortunately we were able to re-establish
>> our credit and then had a couple of credit cards and stopped using the
>> debit card immediately.
>>
>> Now it seems almost like clock work every 9 months we're getting fraud
>> alerts on one of our cards so we don't have card numbers long enough to
>> expire. At one time we had 2 cards locked at about the same time, and
>> that was just in the last 6 months.
>>