Police have issued an urgent self-checkout warning after a scam by frausterrs went unnoticed for 18 days.
Crooks had placed a card-skimming device – disguised as a pin pad – in the self-service aisle of several stores in Cromwell, Connecticut.
Two men are being hunted over the fraud, WFSB reported. It is the latest example of a worrying new fraud on self-checkouts – which is a new take on a well-worn trick used for decades on ATMs. There was a similar case at a Kroger recently.
Card skimmers, often hidden by fraudsters on cash and card machines, steal information such as card numbers and pins from credit and debit cards.
With that information, they can make fake cards or use the information for online purchases without the owner’s permission.
Two Walmart stores have been recently targeted by the scams
Cromwell police released images of the two suspected of installing the devices
In once incident, police received a complaint from Walmart on July 17 after staff discovered a card skimmer on one of its checkout machines.
After staff reviewed store security footage it was discovered that the criminals had placed the skimmer on the register on June 29 – some 18 days earlier.
‘It was further determined that the suspects are also responsible for attaching credit card skimmers to registers in stores across the state,’ Cromwell police said in a statement on Tuesday.
Cromwell police also released images of the two suspects, who they are still searching for.
Suspects with a similar description were also caught on camera fitting skimming device onto machines at nearby LaBonne’s Markets in Prospect, according to police.
Devices were also found on the registers at Big Y’s Naugatuck and Plainville locations, having been fitted on June 29.
Yet another device was found at the Walmart in Naugatuck on July 17.
‘Providing customers with a safe shopping experience is a top priority’ Walmart said in a statement.
‘We’re continually reviewing protocols and adding enhanced security measures to better protect in-store transactions’ the statement added.
A skimming device was also detected in Georgetown, Delaware last month.
The device remained undetected by customer and staff for around ten days, according to local authorities.
‘It’s terrible. I didn’t believe that it was really going to happen and then you hear it on the news,’ Georgetown resident Virginia Layfield told Coast TV news.
‘You know, you don’t know from one day to the next what can happen in a small area like this,’ she said.
The device was only discovered and reported to police when a customer discovered fraud charges on their card, Coast TV reported.
‘We are reaching out to our partners with the FBI to see if we can do facial recognition, see if it’s part of a larger group,’ Lt. Matthew Barlow of the Georgetown Police Department told the outlet
The skimming device found at the Walmart in Connecticut
‘Oftentimes, when we’re talking about fraud of this nature, electronic fraud and things like that may be part of a larger organization, may be something that our partners, the FBI or Secret Service, are already investigating, so we just want to be helpful on that front, obviously take care of our victims here locally as well’ he added.
How to avoid card skimming scams
Dr. Vahid Behzadan, assistant professor of computer science at the University of New Haven told WFSB one of the best ways to protect yourself from such fraud is to use contactless cards or Apple Pay which does not require inserting a card into a machine.
Behzadan also recommends remaining vigilant by trying to detect anomalies by touching around the card reader, frequently checking credit card payments for unusual transactions and even setting up transaction notifications on a smartphone.
